THE COMING OF THE TOTALISATOR - [To the Editor of
the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—As you state in your issue of June 4th that you would be glad to have your readers' views on. the Totalisator, possibly mine may be of interest to you.
Firstly, I am an owner of race-horses in New Zealand, and have been for the last twenty-five years, and naturally attend many race meetings. The totalisator is the only legal method of betting in New Zealand ; it produces a large revenue by the tax which is deducted from all bets staked.
A portion of the tax is handed over to Government directly after the meeting, the balance being kept by the club and expended on increase of stakes, course and building inapra% ments and general upkeep. Your correspondent " Minden plainly blows nothing about the totalisator at all, so a fe facts may be useful to him.
The totalisator can actually be worked without an machinery at all ; in fact it is so worked at Nice, and lain other places in France. At small meetings in New Zealand little contrivance called a machine is used and is taken to next small meeting on a lorry or cart. The latest machine use is electrical and requires an electrician in attendance case of a breakdown, though I believe there has only been o failure known with this type of machine. Most racing du employ their own staff, which is usually recruited from t clerical staff of the local banks, and they prove invariably be "scrupulously honest."
I wonder why " Minden " thinks a man must be endo with scrupulous honesty in order "to work the complicat machinery involved " ! The odds given by the machine are course mathematically fair, as they depend on the balance money staked and not on the fancies and whims of a I bookmakers. In England the great mass of betting is Sta Price betting, and that is simply what totalisator odds in and yet I expect " Minden " considers S.P. betting fair od The cases in which one receives less than one staked are rare that I have seen only two such occurrences in twenty-fh years' experience.
I can safely say to " Minden" that not one of his statoner is even approximately correct. There is, I believe, no eons where racing is made so pleasant and so cheap for the pub as it is in New Zealand, and none where owners contrib such a small portion of the stakes for which they run II horses. Both of which conditions obtain owing to the totat sator, as the more money invested in the machine the ma there is to be expended on -the racing. I most sincerely In that the totalisator will be seen on all English courses wit the next five years, and I believe it will be on most of them.
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