Reriew of Review*, 1110106. 



THE TOTALISATOR IN NEW ZEALAND. 



By a Wellington Barrister. 



If the table dealing with the totalisator permits, 

 which is given in the Xew Zealand Year Book for 

 (905, is looked at, it will be at once seen how con- 

 sistent and rapid has been the increase in the amount 

 of money invested by the public of Xew Zealand in 

 the State-licensed gambling machine. But let us 

 take 1892 — the year taken by the advocates of the 

 totalisator — as the starting point for a comparison. 

 In that year the population of Xew Zealand, exclud- 

 ing Maoris, was 650,433, and the sum passed 

 through the totalisator was ^^506, 078. This is an 

 enormous sum considering that only a small propor- 

 tion of the total population are frequenters of race- 

 courses, at the most not more than, perhaps, 75,000, 

 and it works out at about i6s. per head for every 

 man, woman and child of the community. 



In 1905 the population of Xew Zealand was 

 832,505, and if the public had invested their money 

 in the same proportion on the totalisator — as the sup- 

 porters of the machine state, the sum invested would 

 have been about ;£666,ooo. But last year that sum 

 was more than doubled, the enormous sum of 

 ^£1,437,431, or close on a million and a-half being 

 put through the totalisator. That sum works out at 

 about j£i 14s. 6d. per head. Xor is this merely a 

 fitful or temporary growth. The statistics show that 

 the increase of the amount spent in gambling on the 

 State machine has been alarmingly consistent ; thus, 

 taking the last ten years, in 1896 ;£743.763 were 

 spent by the public in this way, in 1897 ^794,096, 

 in 1898 ^886,567, in 1899 _;^9i2,969, in 1900 

 ;£i, 065-580. in 1901 ^1,168,732, in 1902 

 ^1,275.813. in 1903 ;£i, 274,102, in 1904 

 -£i'357.263, and in 1905 ^1,437,431. 



Supporters of the totalisator attribute a large part 

 of this increase to the increased prosperity of Xew 

 Zealand, and cull figures from the Year Book to 

 show that the colony can stand more taxation than 

 it could thirteen years ago ; but the fact that the 

 Government of a country has increased the burden 

 of taxation does not prove the added wealth of that 

 country's citizens, or that they are better able to pay 

 the increased taxation. In 13 years our indebtedness 

 per head has increased from _;^59 2s. to -£66 7s. 4d., 

 so that it is now, in spite of our vaunted prosperity, 

 heavier than that of Western Australia, Xew South 

 Wales, Tasmania, or Victoria — over ^^25 per head 

 more than that of Victoria. The amount raised by 

 taxation is no guide to the prosperity of a country. 

 The surest test ought to be the net wealth per head 

 of the population. In 1892 the wealth per head of 

 the population of X'ew Zealand was ^236, and the 

 indebtedness per head was ^£59 2s. The net wealth 

 per head was therefore about jQi^T- In 1905 the 



wealth per head was jQ2%o, less ^66 7s. 4d., the 

 indebtedness per head, or about £,21^ net per head. 

 The increase in the prosperity of Xew Zealand has 

 therefore not been in the ratio which the supporters 

 of the machine by their distorted use of certain in- 

 come tax and land tax figures would lead people to 

 suppose, and the increase in the amount of money 

 put through the totalisator from 1892 to 1905 is out 

 of all proportion to the increase in population and 

 in prosperity. 



It is true that there has been a decrease in the 

 number of totalisator permits issued by the Govern- 

 ment since 1892, but the number has been about the 

 same for the past nine years, thus, the numbers 

 issued from 1897 to 1905 were: — 158, 155, 144, 

 154, 153, 165, 148, 151, 156. The reason why more 

 permits are not issued is not because they are not de- 

 sired by many racing clubs and some sections of the 

 community, but that the stronger clubs have acquired 

 a kind of monopoly in the use of the machine, and 

 use their utmost endeavours to prevent permits being 

 issued to the smaller and weaker clubs. A totalisator 

 permit is now in Xew Zealand almost as close a 

 monopoly and as jealously guarded as a license to 

 sell spirituous liquors. If a large club like the Well- 

 ington Racing Club is holding a meeting on the 9th 

 of Xovember, and a smaller club, say, at Otaki, 45 

 miles away proposes to hold a meeting on the same 

 day, it would be to the interest of the Wellington 

 Club to prevent the issue of a totalisator permit to 

 the country club ; for the clubs depend upon the 

 totalisator for their income, reaping a percentage of 

 the amount put through the machine. The larger 

 the amount invested at a meeting, the larger the 'n 

 come of the club that holds that meeting. If two 

 totalisators were plying on the same day within fortx - 

 five miles of each other, a great part of the public's 

 money that would have gone through the machine 

 of the larger club will be diverted to that of the 

 smaller, and a consequent loss of revenue to the 

 larger club will ensue. This explains why the num- 

 ber of permits issued does not increase. The num 

 ber of race days, however, does not decrease, but 

 the tendency is rather the other way. During the 

 last nine years, with the number of totalisator permits 

 per vear remaining about the same, the number of 

 race days has considerably increased — thus, from 

 1897 to 1905 the racing days were — 250, 

 268, 250, 278, 278, 309, 276, 282, 294. 

 Thus it will be seen that the tendency 

 is to hold more and more meetings every 

 vear, and this tendency is not only encouraged 

 bv. but is directly due to the legalisation of the 

 totalisator, for without the proceeds of the totalisator 



