BETTENIG AND THE LAW T HE Government could not be expected
to bring in a Betting and Lotteries Bill that would be satis- factory either to those who object to all betting or those who object to all restrictions. Opinion on both sides is very strong. It is doubtful if any Government, even a National Government, would have ventured on any drastic alteration of the laW had it not been forced on it by a notorious extension of the gambling habit promoted by new agencies, with new means of spreading their bait before the public. Driven to action by the swiftly grow- ing abuse of dog-race betting, public sweepstakes (especially the Irish Sweepstakes), newspaper lotteries, the mushroom emergence two years ago of Toteclubs, and the report of the Royal Commission appointed to examine these questions, the Government has at length produced a Bill whose whole object is to stop or put a limit to the newer growths.
It makes no attempt to deal with betting abuses of long standing. Thus the proposed measure ignores alto- gether the recommendations of the Royal Commission in regard to street betting, on which, it should be recalled, there was not unanimity ; and it has not attempted to deal with the class discrepancy which permits credit betting to the well-to-do while off-the-course cash betting is illegal for the poor. These were difficult matters on which it might not have been easy to secure agreement even among members of the Cabinet. They have been put aside. And so the Bill confines its more important provisions to the dog-rac-!s, the sweepstakes, and the news- paper competitions—the latest, that is to say, of the " facilities for organized or professional gambling " (in the words of the Commission's report) which " can be shown to have serious social consequences."
The spirit of compromise prevails in the clauses which deal with betting on greyhound racing tracks. If the Government had been out for a sweeping reform it would have illegalized all betting on the course at dog-race meetings ; and that would have been the logical outcome of the considerations which have made legislation neces- sary. For the objection is not merely to the frequency of the dog-race meetings (which take place, not occasionally, as at horse-race courses, but five or six times a week throughout the whole year) ; the offence arises more especially from their presence in the heart of industrial areas all over the country, making betting easy to workers, even on working days. If it is really wrong to permit betting on these courses three hundred times a year it is logical to contend that it cannot be right to permit it on one hundred days. But the Government was not intent upon a sweeping reform, which might have lacked the necessary backing of public opinion, and might, indeed, have had the result of encouraging illegal betting ; and therefore it proposes to allow betting by way of bookmaking or by means of a totalisator on any licensed track. on not more than 104 days in a calendar year. That is not an heroic plan ; it is a compromise which does not attempt to abolish the evils attendant on dog-racing, but only to lessen them. And it will be observed that it is a direct departure from . the recommendations of the Royal Commission, which would have forbidden the use of the Tote at dog-race meetings altogether. The reasons for this decision are not yet apparent, but it is presumably due to the consideration that if betting in any form is to be tolerated on the course it may as well take place through the medium of the Tote.
The main objects of this part of the Bill are three- fold :—to reduce the number of days on which dog-races will be attended in any given district ; to diminish the betting interests of the managements ; and to give local authorities control over the situation. This last object is attained by restricting betting to licensed tracks, the local authority having power to grant or refuse licences according to various conditions laid down in the Bill. The gambling interest of the managements will be restricted by the provision that the operators of a totali- sator may not take more than 3 per cent. from the pools for their expenses, and that the charges to bookmakers shall be limited. The aim clearly is not the impossible one of preventing gambling, but of taking action, as the Royal Commission expressed it, against the " organized exploitation of the gambling propensity." By removing part of the gambling profits of these dog-track undertakings the worst of them will tend to be eliminated.
If the measures against betting on races are timid and tentative, no such criticism need be applied to Part Two of the Bill, which deals with lotteries and prize competi- tions. Since the conclusion has been arrived at that from every point of view public lotteries for the British hospitals would be undesirable, it is clearly necessary to endeavour to close up the loopholes which permit the drain of British money to the Irish Hospitals' Trust Sweepstakes, a large proportion going to the Free State Exchequer. The first eight of these lotteries drew from this country alone no less than £18,500,000. The mad scramble to get rich quick by purchasing tickets in the sweepstakes has been caused almost entirely by the advertisement they have received in the Press. The most effective way to put an end to this mass gambling promoted in Dublin, and stimulated in Fleet Street, is to forbid newspaper publicity both in the form of news and gossip, before the event, and lists of prize-winners after. This provision of the Bill will win almost universal approval outside the Irish Free State.
Equally admirable is the overdue reform prohibiting the notorious newspaper prize competitions in which success depends on guess-work and luck. They are among the most obnoxious of devices for artificially inflating newspaper circulations. The prohibition is welcome not only as preventing the evil which arises by direct encouragement of the gambling habit, but also because it will free the popular Press from one at least of the conditions which are undermining its journalistic soundness. In forbidding a practice which was, in effect, the bribing of subscribers by the offer of big money prizes, the promoters of the Bill are strictly within the field of action they have marked out for themselves—their aim being, not to endeavour to stop the gambler from gambling, but to prevent interested agencies from inciting to gamble,
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