FOOTBALL POOLS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It is lamentable to find The Spectator joining the ranks of busybodyism and Sabbatarianism, and adding yet another voice to those who would further curtail the right of the ordinary man to do what he likes in his spare time. I refer to your editorial note on football pools, in which you estimate that £40,000,000 is likely to be staked in these concerns during the current season. If this is so (and I sec no reason to doubt it), it argues a widespread interest in, and support of, football betting, since the individual stakes are most certainly small. What right, then, has a sectarian minority to interfere with the pleasures of such a large body of people ? To call any profit made by pool promoters " exploitation " is to misuse terms—or to brand equally any profit taken from the wages of the working class.
Gambling, as you yourself say, prohibited here, breaks out there ; and, indeed, appears to be a human instinct as ineradicable as that of sex. There are far worse types of gambling extant than staking a few pence weekly on the fortunes of football teams ; and to make a dead set against pool betting, while ignoring such pleasures of the wealthy as speculation on the Stock Exchange, is to invite an accusation of class bias.
The average man is being bullied and badgered by busy- bodies to a far greater extent than ever in this country, and I strongly question the use of telling the working-class elector that Socialism means regimentation and slavery for him, while he is hardly allowed to call his soul his own in his spare time, when he should be reasonably free of discipline. The relics of D.O.R.A. and the anomalies of the Shops Hours Act harass him daily ; and the heavy hand of Sabbatarianism still seeks to steer him through the week-end. If this country is to preserve Democracy, liberty must come first ; and any further gratuitous interference - deserves stigmatising as a " crime against society."
I wish to add that' I have no connexion, financial or otherwise, with football pools, and do not bet in any way.—
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