COUPON BETTING: THE FOOTBALL FUNGUS.

OF our great purely national games cricket and football are universally and rightly regarded as the most popular, but there can be little doubt that great as is the popularity of cricket, the interest in football, and more Particularly in football played under the Association code, is far greater. It is by no means a bad thing that this is so, for if cricket be the more scientific, football demands for a short hour and a half from all who take part in it a display of strenuous energy the exercise of which is of distinct advantage. There is no better game by which the youth of the country may acquire habits of dogged perseverance, good temper, self- control, and the art of combining with their fellows to achieve a common purpose. And never at any time has the need of such healthy outdoor exercise been more evident than at the present. When thousands of the population five in small, M-ventilated, overcrowded houses, engaged upon work which year by year is demanding less and less intellectual activity, while all the time efforts are being made to quicken intelligence in the schools, unless there can be provided ample facilities for outdoor games, there is but a poor outlook for either the moral or physical strength of the growing genera- tion. On all these counts it would he an incalculable and unqualified calamity if football were to be dethroned from its position as the premier outdoor game of the nation.

But games of all kinds., if they are to be of real value, must be played for the sake of the game itself, for the mere joy of the display of physical superiority, for the simple pleasure of beating an opponent in fair contest without any thought of reward. When once the canker of ulterior gain as the result of a win enters into a game, part of the genuine healthy pleasure goes, and the pass to which running on the fiat and rowing—on the Tyneside in particular—have been reduced owing to money interests, the result of betting and gambling in connexion with these exercises, seems in a fair way, unless immediate steps are taken, to foreshadow the fate of Association football.

It is not our present purpose to argue the question of professional versus amateur football, nor do I propose to say much regarding the system of medal-hunting pursued by junior teams all over the oountay„ a system which enables many a. boy to dangle from his watch-chain several inartistic bits of silver—medals so-called—the rewards of winning teams in all kinds of competitions. The spirit of the game has been so largely killed by even this consideration that teams which as the season advances find they are not likely to have any chance of winning the championship of their League " draw out," as it is called, and disband, to spend their Saturday afternoons for the rest of the season in watching rather than in playing the game.

Apart from mere medal-hunting, it is only in recent years that thoughts of gain have become connected with football. Of course, as with all games, there have always been the odd sporting bets between one keen partisan and another, but these have never done much harm. Some years ago, however, among junior teams in the North there sprang up with great rapidity a system which was called "making a book." This really meant getting up a sweepstake upon the result of an important local match. A boy would head a page of a grimy little book, say, " Liverpool v. Sunderland," with the date, and below would be lines for entries providing for wins for either side up to possibly six goals and a draw. A penny a share was the usual charge, but several shares might be taken by one boy. If fifteen shares were issued the winner would receive a shilling, so that the promoter would gain threepence, or in the event of more than the six goals being scored would pocket the whole ls. 3d. This form of gambling spread very quickly among boys, and soon more complicated " books " were devised and larger sums became involved.

That system, evil as it had become, has now been largely superseded by a worse one, which is known as the coupon betting system. It is perhaps beat illustrated by the exact copy of a coupon given below. Football coupons are causing

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15TH, 1913.

No. 1 Home No. 2 Visiting Team. Team. 1st F'c'st 2nd F'o'st 3rd F'c'st 4th F'e'et 5th F'c'st Free Line

LIVERPOOL V SHEFFIELD WED.

MIDDLESBOROUGH v SUNDERLAND SHEFFIELD U. V WEST BROM. A.

GLOSSOP v NOTTS FOREST

STOCKPORT C'TY V LEEDS CITY

LEI( ESTER POSSE v GRIMSBY TOWN 11ILLWALL ATE. v QUEEN'S PARER.

BURY RESERVES v LIVERPOOL RES.

ST. HELENS TOWN v ECCLES BOROUGH- Name Stake

Per Line

Odds Matches. Odds Matches.

4 to 6...1 10 to 1...222 Evens...2 10 „ 1...1111 2 to 1...11 40 „ 1...xxx 4 „ 1..22 1 Denotes 12 „ 1,..1112 5 „ 2...x 14„ 1...1122 Home Team 5 „2...12 16 „ 1...22x 2 Denotes 5 „ 1...lx 18 „ 1...111x Visiting Team

6 „ 1...2x 20 „ 1...112x

6 „ 1.. 111 20 „ 1...1222

x Denotes Draw

7 ,, 1...U2 25 „ 1...2xx 8 „ 1...122 25 „ L..2222 12 „ 1...xx 33 „ 1...122x 12 „ 1...11x 40 „ 1...11xx 12 „ 1...12x 40 „ 1...2x 20 „ 1...1x1 50 „ 1...22251 50 „ 1...12xx LONG ODDS. 50 „ 1...22xx 30 to I...aay 5 Correct Result. 60 „ 1..222222 40 „ 1... „ 6 „ „ 70 „ 1...1xxx

80 Of 1••• t, 7 .. .. 80 „ 1...2xxx 200 ■■• 1.•• II 8 „ PP 120 „ 1...xxxx

400 „ 1... „ 9„ „ 100 „ 1...22222x 8 to 1 Any Correct Score on Coupon only.

16 to 1 any 3 Away in First Division, On or Off the Coupon. o .1

t .1.°A

0.0 5

.1 NI. times

Er Eg

33 to 1 „ 4 II It 9, 10 to 1 Any Six Ist'hivision only. 7 to 1 Any Six Winners First and Second Division only.

Any Matches not Starting where you pick your own Six in 1st Division, also

in 1st and 2nd Divisions, the following odds will be paid: 4 to 1 Five and

3 to 1 Four, less than four no Bet.

RULES—When a Match Starts, Pay on Result of Day's Play.

If any matches are not started on Coupon, pay odds to snatches played. No bets to bo written on the back of the Coupon, Any Matches not played as stated on Coupon will be void.

1:1” Settlements on Monday Nights at S-0. STANDARD.

an amount of gambling which, while extremely harmful, in particular to the youths who take part in it, is peculiarly obnoxious in that it is fraught with vital danger to the game itself. For, as has been shown in not a few recent legal actions, the profits made by the persons issuing these coupons are enormous, and it is to be feared that the methods which have led to the disrepute in which professional rowing and foot-racing on the flat are now held may utterly corrupt Association football also, and involve in disaster a game which when played as a game is one of the finest in the world.

It requires no depth of thought to understand that a lad whose pocket-money is at the outside a shilling a week, and who speculates a shilling on his judgment as to the result of any particular Saturday's football matches, will lose his keen interest in playing the game himself, and, if the great team which he has backed to win is playing in his neighbourhood, will far rather make an effort to witness that game. Still worse, it is to be feared that the unsportsmanlike cries which may not infrequently be heard along the touch line are really prompted by monetary interests, and that sometimes the violent scenes which have taken place upon football fields may be traced to large numbers of spectators having lost money owing to the favourite team not having won, and to there being a general suspicion that the goalkeeper or some other member of the losing side has sold the match.

As, another indication of how marked the money interest in the game has become, I might mention the practice which

may sometimes be seen of " sporting " persons in corners of the ground getting up on the spur of the moment threepenny sweepstakes as to who will score the first goal. It is a simple

matter. The forwards and half-backs of each side are numbered from one to eight, beginning with the left outside, while the backs and goalkeepers are left out of consideration. The promoter always takes a share himself and, of course, if no goals are scored, has what is called "a clear book," which is

also his lot if a full-back should happen to score. After the first goal has been scored the keen "sportsman" (?) imme- diately promotes another sweepstake for the second goal, and so on. There is never any lack of custom.

To return to the coupons. The means by which they are distributed are in themselves remarkable, for in the greater

number of cases the backer has no knowledge of his principal,

who is quite usually a small bookmaker regularly following his calling during the ordinary racing season. The coupons are

printed very cheaply by small local printers and handed prac-

tically to anybody who will consent to act as agent. An agent isnot hard to find, since he gets from ls. 8d. to 2s. in the £ for

all bets received. He issues the forms wholesale, it may be in

the great ironworks in which be is employed, or, if he be a carter, in the various cellars and warehouses of the firms upon

whom he calls. Or sometimes he will take his stand at some particular street corner, there to issue the coupons and receive them back signed. They are not issued until the Thursday in each week, and the speculator hands the coupon

with his stake to the agent not later than 2.30 p.m. on the Saturday. The bookmakers are usually honest men, and pay

out the right amounts to those who win, but as they offer only

short odds for likely results and more attractive odds only for more unlikely events there are not many winners. Few

youths will risk 6d. to win 4d.—the odds offered to anyone

backing a home team to win—while there are many always ready to expend 6d. to win 20s. on the probability of having

prophesied three matches to be drawn. By no means infre- quent are cases in which young boys club their money together in order to take a share or two in a coupon, whilst how largely men may interest themselves in this form of gambling may be instanced from the disclosure in a recent case tried at Edinburgh, in which it was stated in evidence that one man from Colne had staked no less than £22 10s. in a bet to win £40.

Apart altogether from other considerations, there can be no doubt that the manner in which nearly the whole of the inhabitants in many artisan districts confine their conver- sation from Thursday to Saturday night to football and its probable results must be injurious. Hardly ever during the conversation is real play so much talked of as is the likelihood of a man being able to win so much if he backs such and such teams. I am inclined to think that this constant practice of

betting is doing not a little to affect the general steadiness

of character among young workmen. A youth who has happened to win once or twice, or who feels certain, as so many do, that a week or two will see him the winner of a consider..

able sum, gradually becomes so obsessed that he loses the keen interest that he may have had in his work, and becomes indifferent to the risk of dismissal—dismissal which in many cases means absolute disaster in the home to which be belongs. For some time past the principal firms engaged in issuing football coupons, many of whom conduct their operations from Switzerland, have imagined that they steer clear of any legal liability on the ground that they do not receive money in advance for betting purposes, but only receive sums from agents after the event.

Rapidly as the coupon system has grown during the last few months, equally rapid has been the growth of so-called competitions organized by newspapers all over the country.

Enormous prizes, consisting in some instances of sums of £5 or more per week for life, are offered to the successful com- petitors as the result of their being able to foretell the winners in a given series of football matches during a stated period. The newspapers concerned must be reaping as rich a harvest as they did in the days of the "missing word competitions," the abuse of which was recognized by law. It is a profound pity that Lord Newton's Betting Induce- ments Bill should have failed to become law during the last

session of Parliament. The call for action is urgent, and the Bill, with but very little amendment, would have done much to check and destroy this fungoid growth which is so rapidly

poisoning one of the most valuable games of the country. That it may be brought forward and passed early next session cannot but be the earnest wish of everyone sincerely interested, for whatever reason, in the welfare of football.

CHARLES E. B. RUSSELL.