TOTALISATORS AND SWEEPS. 57 



hunting eagerly about the paddock for the pieces. 

 The totaUsator^ however, does not pay over mutilated 

 tickets. It is a bad plan to tear up a ticket until you 

 know for certain there is no chance of its being 

 negotiable. 



Some owners have a way of avoiding publicity 

 when putting money on the machine, and they accom- 

 plish it in this way. They find out someone who 

 knows one of the men. working the machine. This 

 individual is entrusted with, say £20, to put on a 

 certain horse. He goes up to the ticket-window in 

 good time, before there is a crush on, takes one ticket, 

 which is duly rung on, and hands the £20 to the man 

 inside, whispering him to slip the other nineteen on 

 one at a time when business is brisk, so that it will not 

 be noticed. The other tickets are kept by the clerk 

 inside the machine, who pays out on them after the 

 race, if the horse wins, and no doubt gets a bit for the 

 trouble he has taken. Of course if the £20 had been 

 put on in bulk someone would have noticed it and 

 followed suit, and the dividend would have been 

 materially lessened. 



Ten years ago totalisators were run in various 

 shops in Brisbane. This was illegal, but no notice 

 was taken of it for some considerable time. All that 

 is done away with now; but I well remember when 

 big races down South were on. Mooneyes and Nesbitt^s 

 shops were filled with an excited throng for hours 



