The Doom of the Tote
THE interim report of the Royal Commission on Lotteries and Betting is an immensely valuable social document, providing a mass of new data on the subject with which it deals—the totalisator—and to that extent demanding some re-examination of judgements based on the facts so far available. Three points of importance regarding the report should be noted: first, that it is unanimous; secondly, that it is an interim report and will have ultimately to be considered in the light of the Commission's final conclusions ; and thirdly, that its recommendations, if accepted by the Cabinet, will need little if any legislation, though actually a formal measure may be needed to put the position beyond the reach of doubt.
The recommendations deal with two different questions, and about one of them little need be said. The tote clubs that have sprung up in recent months like an evil fungus growth are unequivocal), condemned. The Commission describes them roundly as " a grave social menace." They provide additional facilities for betting and tend to induce the betting habit in sections of the community hitherto free from it. The recent decision of the Divisional Court has made the existence of tote clubs illegal, and in view of the Commission's report— or for that matter without it—not ten members of the House of Commons would support a proposal to legalize them. So, at least, it may be hoped. In any case, the tote club is damned and doomed. If the Divisional Court had found it legal new legislation to prohibit it would have had to be passed. As it is, that necessity is probably obviated as regards England, though the posi- tion in Scotland requires examination.
With the tote clubs disposed of, the Commission was faced with the larger, more difficult and more contentious question of the totalisator on greyhound racing tracks. Greyhound racing is a new diversion which has gathered its own devotees and remains something totally unfamiliar to the great mass of the population. The Commission, executing its mandate with a thoroughness worthy of all praise, has embodied in its report an instructive survey of the " sport," designed primarily to dispel the idea that any legitimate parallel can be drawn between dog-racing and horse-racing, and between the totalisator as an adjunct to the dog-track and to the horse racecourse respectively. Thus it is- pointed out that dog-tracks, unlike most racecourses, are situated in or on the edge of great industrial centres, and that instead of being the scene of race-meetings on half a dozen or a dozen days in the year are open for racing at least three, and sometimes as much as six or seven, times a week. As a mere matter of volume, therefore, the distinction between the dog-track problem and the horse-track problem is substantial.
But the Commission goes much farther than that The two problems, it claims, differ not only in degree
but in character, in that the greyhound-racing track exists by and for betting, particularly totalisator betting, while horse-racing has its own raison d'être, and would
continue if no money were ever laid on horses at all. Hence the conclusion that in the interests of social health the totalisator on dog-racing tracks should be permaz ncntly prohibited. There are two principal arguments in support of that finding. The totalisator is a source of large profits to the racecourse owners, who therefore have a direct financial interest in the encouragement of betting—which is obviously pernicious. Secondly, the totalisator is by no means as watertight financially as is commonly claimed. Grave irregularities, according
to the Commission, can quite well exist and in many cases do in fact exist. On both those grounds the totalisator on greyhound courses stands condemned. Now this is not quite the whole story. Greyhound race-track owners have something to say on certain points and they are entitled to say it. They had, for example, reasonable ground to think the tote legal after the House of Lords decision in 1929. But from the Commission's report one conclusion definitely emerges. In face of the arguments it adduces, and in the light of its unanimous finding, there can be no 'question at present of introducing legislation to legalize the totalisator on dog-tracks. It has been declared illegal, and illegal it must remain pending the issue of the Commission's final report, which will enable the whole field of gambling in every form to be surveyed in its entirety, and will, it is earnestly to be hoped, make for the removal of such existing anomalies as give a show of reason for the demand for the tote on the dog-track.
For no one can regard the situation created by the Commission's findings as completely satisfactory. The totalisator will disappear from the dog-track, but the bookmakers will, for the moment at any rate, remain. In the view of the Commissioners that will, at least, be a step in the right direction, and they may well be right ; but the contention is arguable. Moreover, while the totalisator is to disappear from the dog-track it will presumably remain on -the horse racecourse under the conditions laid down by the Act of 1928. There is at least one intermediate solution which the Commission might have advised, but which after full consideration it ruled out. The tote at dog-races might have been continued, under effective statutory control, and with all element of private profit excluded. That would be a broadly reasonable decision and it might be sufficient to dispose of the whole problem, for on the Commission's own showing most dog-courses now are run on the basis of tote profits and wouli go bankrupt if that source of profit were removed. A provision of that kind would put the dog-tote on substantially the same footing as the horse-tote and remove an impression of discrimination in itself undesirable, even though based, as the Commis, sion is at pains to argue, on a false-analogy.
But there are two ways of removing that discrimination, You can allow the totalisator everywhere, or you can ban
it everywhere. After all, it has only been authorized on
horse racecourses since "1928. Racing was carried on effectively enough without it for centuries before that,
and it is a matter of common knowledge that so far it has signally failed to fulfil its purpose of providing funds for the encouragement of horse-breeding. It can be argued, moreover, that even the horse-tote encourages betting, as being more respectable than resort to a bookmaker. The cry of one tote for the rich man and no tote for the poor man is not to be ignored, for all the endeavours of the Commission to discount it in advance. It may not matter a great deal, but it may matter enough, even so; to outweigh the very limited advantage of perpetuating the tote in a position of special privilege on a number of horse racecourses. The Commission might with advan- tage take that into account in drafting its final report.
For important as its concrete recommendations are, the most valuable effect of the Commission's work may well
be in stimulating the nation to search its conscience regarding the whole question of gambling in its many forms. Even in this land of rough and ready compromises it will not quite do to say (even if it were true) that gamb- ling by certain classes of the population hits evil social effects and must be prohibited, but that gambling by other classes is relatively innocuous and may be tolerated. The laudation of betting in English tradition and in English literature—or if not its laudation its studied palliation—is an evil heritage. You cannot hold up to admiration, either in literature or in life, a society where betting is universal and to be a heavy loser is a mark of
distinction, and at the same time legislate against the Working-man who puts his odd shillings on a horse. Betting, as a whole, in this country is, like the tote clubs, a social menace. Legislation to counter it is essential, but on grounds equally of justice and expediency it should be legislation which avoids in every way possible discrimination between classes.
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