With much satisfaction we read the statement that the Cabinet
have agreed to make a beginning with the taxation of betting in the manner recommended for many months in the Spectator. The present intention is to tax credit betting and perhaps also—there are con- flicting reports about this—betting on ;race-courses. Such a scheme, of course, would leave ready-moneybetting in the street untouched. But the great advantage of the proposed method of approach is that it would leave the betting laws unchanged. There would be no recog- nition of betting that is not already recognized. Apparently the intention is to make the bookmakers add a charge to the paper, or ticket, recording the transaction just as a charge is now added, under the Entertainments Tax, to the price of a ticket at a place of amusement. Of all the luxury pastimes in this country betting seems to us to be the most luxurious and therefore the one that chiefly cries out to be taxed.
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