Review of Reciewl, 1/1)106. 



The Totalisator in Xew Zealand. 



339 



to swell their income, jockey clubs would not be 

 able to afford to hold the number of meetings an- 

 nually that are held. Many of the stronger clubs 

 hold four meetings every year, and each meeting 

 takes up two, and sometimes three days. This would 

 be impossible without the totalisator, which enables 

 the racing clul)s to draw large revenues from the 

 public. Every holiday is eagerly seized by clubs all 

 over the colony to hold meetings. There are also 

 many clubs which conduct meetings without a total- 

 isator, not being able to obtain a permit, so that the 

 294 race days in New Zealand in 1905, which by 

 themselves mean a race day for practically every 

 week -da V of the year, do not by any means exhaust 

 the total number of race days in New Zealand. But 

 if the number of race days on w'hich totalisator per- 

 mits were issued must alone be counted, it is evident 

 that, with the number of permits not materially in- 

 creased, the totalisator is the factor which accounts 

 for the large increase in the amount of money an- 

 nually gambled upon it by the New Zealand public. 

 If there have been no increases in the number of 

 permits issued, and yet nearly two-and-a-half times 

 as much money has passed through the machine, the 

 obvious deduction is that more than double the 

 amount of money must be invested on the machine 

 on each race day than was invested thirteen years 

 ago — in 1892. .And this is a fact. The amount of 

 monev invested in one single day on some of the 

 larger racecourses of New Zealand is well-nigh in- 

 credible. The sum of jQ.\o,ooo is quite common on 

 our larger courses, and when it is remembered that 

 large race meetings are often taking place on the 

 same day in different parts of the colony, on many 

 days more than double this sum would be a small 

 estimate of the amount of money invested by the 

 public on the machine. 



So much for the figures quoted by the supporters 

 of the totalisator. The most serious misrepresenta- 

 tion, however, is the statement as to the effect of the 

 legalisation of the totalisator in New Zealand. " It 

 has abolished every known form of illicit public 

 betting." On the contrary, it has been the direct 

 cause of the establishment, on what seems to be an 

 unshakable basis, of one of the most virulent and 

 demoralising sores in the body politic of the com- 

 munit) — what is known as the "tote shops." It 

 takes some mathematical skill and a good deal of ex- 

 perience to make a book of odds in the manner of 

 the approved bookmaker, but any simpleton can lay 

 totalisator odds, and the effect of the totalisator has 

 been that a whole army of the lowest class of the 

 community, parasites on society, men who produce 

 nothing, except negatively, and who add nothing to 

 the prosperity of the colony, cluster in the towns, 

 conducting these illegal betting shops, and follow 

 the race meetings round over the colony, laying 

 totalisator odds and living at the expense of the men 

 and women who spend their lives in the work of 

 honest production. The laying of totalisator odds 



has been made illegal, but in the face of the 

 deadened moral feeling amongst the people, for 

 which the State-licensed machine and its supporters 

 must surely bear the responsibility, the law seems 

 powerless to check the evil. Although everyone, in- 

 cluding the police, knows that the law is being 

 broken daily, openly and flagrantly, knows the of- 

 fenders, and the place where they carry on their il- 

 legal trade, no prosecutions follow. These breakers 

 of the law are allowed to continue their trade in 

 peace, and a kind Government even supplied them 

 with telephones (until a month ago, when orders were 

 given to cut off the telephones of bookmakers) to 

 make it easier for them to conduct their illegal trade, 

 and still allows them the use of the telegraph service 

 uf the colony to aid them in breaking the law. The 

 bookmaker is not extinguished by the totalisator. 

 Far from it. He flourishes under its shadow like 

 the green bay tree, lays totalisator odds unmolested, 

 impudently advertises his trade in our daily news- 

 papers, and lives in comfort, and in many cases in 

 luxury, out of the weaknesses of human nature, with- 

 out doing one day's toil in the year for the benefit of 

 the community, and without producing anything but 

 a plentiful and continuous crop of poverty, dis- 

 honesty, crime and ruin, which bears its pitiful fruit 

 in the police courts and criminal records of the 

 colony. Only last night there appeared in the Wel- 

 lington " Evening Post " a half-column of the views 

 of the President of the Wellington Racing Club on 

 the increase of gambling in the colony, on which 

 question even the racing magnates of the colony are 

 concerning themselves, and which has reached such 

 a stage of menace to the community that the daily 

 papers of all shades of opinion which are not, as 

 a general rule, the fearless leaders of reform they 

 would lead us to suppose, nor the champions of 

 liberty against the power of vested interests that from 

 their great influence they might be, have united in 

 clamouring for some measure of reform. There is 

 growing in the colony a healthy public conscience on 

 this matter that will be strong enough before long 

 to outlaw the totalisator and to deal effectively with 

 the abuse of "tote shops." The President of the 

 Wellington Racing Club attributes the increase in 

 gambling in New' Zealand, which he cannot help but 

 observe, not to the totalisator, but to boukmakers, 

 the very gentlemen whom part of the press asserts 

 the totalisator has wiped out of existence in New 

 Zealand. His proposed remedy is to abolish book- 

 makers by law, and to keep the totalisator. But 

 that would surely be legislation on an illogical prin- 

 ciple. It would be legislation to make an individual 

 a criminal for doing what it would be right for the 

 State (which is the sum of the individuals in the 

 community) to do. If it is illegal for one man, surely 

 it should be illegal for all men, and a State has no 

 moral right to license itself to commit a crime which 

 it will not permit its members individually to commit. 

 I mention the views of the President of the Welling- 



