Part 14

28. Since the decision in the Kempton Park case, it has been impossible for the police to stop bookmakers carrying on their trade at athletic meetings, except at the direct request of the proprietors of the ground.

29. The Committee, therefore, recommend that on any race-course or other ground on which a sport is being carried on, where a printed notice is publicly exposed by the responsible authorities to the effect that “No betting is allowed,” a bookmaker who continues to bet shall be liable to summary arrest and a fine.

30. It has been suggested in evidence before the Committee that powers should be given to the Postmaster-General and his principal assistants in Scotland and Ireland, to open all letters supposed to contain coupons or betting circulars sent from abroad.

In this connection the Committee have received valuable evidence from Mr. Lamb, C.B., C.M.G., and Sir Robert Hunter, on behalf of the Postmaster-General, which makes it impossible for them to recommend the proposed suggestion.

31. The Committee are, however, of the opinion that the same power as the Postmaster-General already possesses to stop letters sent in the open post relating to lotteries should be given to him to stop circulars relating to coupon competitions, or advertisements of betting commission agents and sporting tipsters.

32. The Committee do not consider that it would be possible for the Postmaster-General to make any distinction between the facilities afforded to betting telegrams and other telegrams.

II

LORD DAVEY’S STREET BETTING BILL 1903

A Bill intituled “An Act to amend the Betting Acts 1853 and 1874, and for other purposes.”

Be it enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1. The word “resorting” in section one of the Betting Act 1853, and this Act, shall include applying by the agency of another person or by letter, telegraph, telephone, or other means of correspondence, and the word “resort” in section seven of the said Act, and in this Act, shall have the same meaning.

2. The provisions of section three of the Betting Act 1853 shall extend and apply to any person opening, keeping, or using, within the United Kingdom, any house, office, room, or place for the purpose of any money or valuable thing being received by or on behalf of the keeper of any betting-house or office situate either within or without the United Kingdom.

3. The provisions of section seven of the Betting Act 1853 shall extend and apply to any person exhibiting or publishing, or causing to be exhibited or published, any placard, handbill, card, writing, or other advertisement whereby it shall appear that any house, office, room, or place is opened, kept, or used either within or without the United Kingdom for the purposes in the said section mentioned or referred to, or any of them, and to any person who shall invite other persons to resort to any house, office, room, or place either within or without the United Kingdom for the purposes aforesaid or any of them: Provided that, if it appear that any such advertisement or invitation has been published in any registered newspaper inadvertently and without knowledge on the part of the proprietor or manager of the newspaper of the nature of the business advertised or the meaning of the contents of the advertisement, the penalty may be remitted by the court.

4. (1) Any person exercising the business of a bookmaker or betting agent by betting or offering to bet with other persons or inciting other persons to bet with him, or receiving money or other valuable thing as consideration for any bet, or paying or settling any bets in any street or other public place, or any place to which the public have unrestricted access, or any house licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and shall be liable, if convicted for the first offence, to a fine not exceeding ten pounds, and for the second offence to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, and for any subsequent offence, if convicted on indictment, to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds or to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding six months, without the option of a fine, and, if convicted on a summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding thirty pounds or to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding three months, without the option of a fine: Provided always, that if a person be convicted under this section of betting with any person under the age of sixteen years or receiving money from or paying money to any such person or inciting any such person to bet with him he shall be liable for the first and every subsequent offence to the maximum penalty or imprisonment hereinbefore imposed for the third and subsequent offences.

(2) All books, cards, papers, and other articles connected with such betting as aforesaid shall be deemed to be instruments of gaming, and any person so offending as aforesaid shall be deemed to be a rogue and vagabond within the meaning of fifth George the Fourth, chapter eighty-three, and shall be subject to be arrested and searched in accordance with the provisions in that behalf therein contained.

(3) Any person who appears to the court to be under the age of sixteen years shall for the purpose of this section be deemed to be under that age unless the contrary be proved.

(4) For the purpose of this section, the word “street” shall have the same meaning as in the Public Health Act 1875.

5. The proprietors or persons having the control of any area within which sports are carried on may exhibit at the entrance or in some conspicuous place within the same, notices that betting is prohibited within the said area or some part thereof, and, in that case, any person who shall hold himself out as ready to bet with other persons, or incite other persons to bet with him, within the area where betting is so prohibited, shall be guilty of an offence under this Act, and shall be liable to the same penalties as he would have been under this Act if he had been convicted of betting in the street.

6. Any person who knowingly receives money from an infant as consideration for a bet to be made with him shall be guilty of an offence within section one of the Betting and Loans (Infants) Act 1892, and shall be liable to the penalties imposed by that section, and the other provisions of the said Act shall be applicable to him.

7. (1) The penalties imposed by this Act may be recovered by proceedings under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, and, in Scotland, in the manner provided by section four of the Betting Act 1874, save where otherwise provided; and, in Scotland, “indictment” has the same meaning as in the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1887.

(2) The provisions as to arrest and search contained in Statute of fifth George the Fourth, chapter eighty-three, shall, by this Act, be applied to offences under sections four and five of this Act committed in Scotland.

8. In this Act—

The word “bookmaker” means a person exercising the business of betting with persons resorting to him for the purpose:

The word “betting agent” means a person acting as agent for a bookmaker or for making bets between any two persons.

9. This Act may be cited as the Betting Act 1903, and shall be read with the Betting Acts 1853 and 1874.

NOTE.—Lord Davey has just introduced another Bill entitled “An Act for the Suppression of Betting in Streets and other Public Places” (Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, ½d.). It is a very valuable measure, but has been confined for good reasons to offences coming under the title of Street Betting. In any further legislation it will be necessary to bring the advertisements of Betting Houses, the proprietors of which call themselves Commission Agents, whether British or Foreign, under such provisions as those of the Betting Act 1853 (section 7), as pointed out by the Lord Chief Justice.

III

SUMMARY OF LORDS’ COMMISSION

HOUSE OF LORDS SELECT COMMITTEE ON BETTING

EXCERPTS FROM EVIDENCE

WITNESSES: Mr. JOHN HAWKE, Honorary Secretary, National Anti-Gambling League, and Mr. G. H. STUTFIELD, Counsel for the Jockey Club, and for the Bookmakers and Street Bookmakers.

Mr. HAWKE gave evidence as to the great increase during late years, especially in street betting at starting prices, and newspaper coupon betting; also as to betting at athletic sports and in public-houses; as to the bye-laws being passed by local authorities on street betting, and the enormous scale upon which coupons are carried on, one proprietor of an insignificant newspaper receiving between £2000 and £3000 a week in postal orders, etc., as acknowledged by himself in evidence. After his conviction his newspaper was advertising the business as continued from Holland.

Mr. STUTFIELD (Q. 299) said he believed that artisans of all ages and all classes, including women, put their small coins on horses through the street bookmakers.

He did not think (Q. 300, etc.) that such backers—he could not say about the children—required protection against being over-matched by the bookmakers.

He did not see any reason in legal principle (Q. 435-36) why foreign coupon houses should be allowed to advertise in English papers, but he did not think it would do any good to prohibit it.

He agreed that all, or nearly all, such betting as street betting was now done at starting prices (Q. 308-9), guaranteed by the bookmaker to the customers by the publication in newspapers of the starting-price odds (Q. 315-16), but he did not think (Q. 266) its prohibition would stop starting-price betting, as he expected that bookmakers would form some plan to reassure their clients (Q. 269) as to their being fairly dealt with.

He considered that a result of the Kempton Park case was that it was no infringement (Q. 475-76) of the Betting Act of 1853 for bookmakers to carry on their business in athletic sports grounds, and that under that decision (Q. 573) public-houses may practically become betting exchanges, and sometimes do. The Kempton Park case did not decide that the race-course ring could not be a place under the Act, but that it was not used by a person in the position of an occupier or owner (Q. 447-53).

He did not think that new forms and new kinds of betting should be dealt with in the same way as the 1853 Act dealt with what existed at that time; and he did not advocate any extension of it (Q. 443-44), as he did not consider that it was really intended to suppress betting (Q. 443) but that it may have done a certain amount of good in preventing crowds of people resorting to a particular house and creating scandal (Q. 438).

He did not, however, consider that the betting in public houses was very desirable (Q. 517), and would amend the Licensing Act. He did not think that bye-laws could deal with licensed houses, but that they might put down betting in streets and public places (Q. 602-3).

He said that if the bookmaker were suppressed there would be no betting (Q. 535-36), as he thought occasional private bets between individuals without a bookmaker could not be satisfactory (Q. 532).

With regard to the _friendly_ actions in which Mr. Stutfield had been engaged as counsel on behalf of the betting men, viz. the _Kempton Park_ case, _Stoddart_ of _Sporting Luck_ against his printers, the _Argus Printing Co._, and _Thomas_ v. _Sutters_ (the street bookmaker’s appeal against the bye-law), he maintained that there was nothing improper about them (Q. 411, 552, 561).

Mr. HAWKE also gave evidence as to the corruption of the public services and British sports by the professional betting system, and of its disastrous effects, especially among the wage-earning classes. Amongst the records of his Society taken from the courts of law in five and a half years were 80 suicides, 321 embezzlements, and 191 bankruptcies, the witness pointing out reasons for believing that these numbers were very much below the true totals.

Mr. HAWKE said that his Society held the same opinion as that published by Sir Fitzjames Stephen (author of the _Digest of the Criminal Law_) in the _Nineteenth Century Magazine_, July 1891, who said that the business of a betting agent was carried on in defiance of the general body of the law, and added, “The existence of such a person appears to me to be an insult to the law.” The National Anti-Gambling League made the following recommendations, based upon a study of the question lasting over eight years:—

_Street and Public Place Betting._ Increased fines and imprisonment.

_Newspaper Coupon Betting._ Making it illegal to publish Advertisements of English and foreign betting-houses.

_Tipsters’ Circulars._ Making illegal to issue.

_Paying Bets in Public-houses._ Making illegal.

_Areas controlled by Private Amending the Act of 1853 if Proprietors._ the _Powell_ v. _Kempton Park_ case should be accepted as the correct construction of the Act.

_Publication of the Betting Making illegal. Odds (S.P. or Ante-post)._

_Trade of Professional Betting._ Making illegal.

Colonel FLUDYER (commanding Scots’ Guards), Chairman of Tattersall’s Committee, said that they spent a great deal of time in adjusting betting disputes. He advocated licensing bookmakers who plied their trade away from the race-course, but leaving things at races as they are.

CHIEF CONSTABLE OF MANCHESTER said that the increase in betting was chiefly among artisans and the working classes generally, resulting in neglect of wives and children, disregard for parents, becoming careless and indifferent in their occupations, and frequent embezzlements from their employers. Betting was general at athletic meetings in the Manchester district, many of them depending on it for financial success. The Kempton Park decision had prevented police action. In many instances competitors perform only to suit the books of the betting men. Street betting was the most pernicious form of the evil. Some publicans pay street bookmakers to carry on in proximity to their houses. He advocated a large fine and imprisonment for street offenders. Incitements to betting in newspapers should be restrained, and the transmission by post of betting matter should be made illegal.

Sir ALBERT DE RUTZEN, chief Metropolitan Police Magistrate, spoke with twenty-five years’ experience of the Bench in saying that more mischief was brought about by betting than by almost any other cause, especially street betting, which could very well be put down if proper steps were taken. He would increase the fine for a second offence, and for the third treat a bookmaker as a rogue and vagabond under the Vagrants Act. From personal knowledge he could say that the evil arising from betting was as deep-seated as it was possible to be. In cases where persons prosecuted for embezzlement and betting was mentioned as the cause, his Court was in the habit of making inquiries, which invariably confirmed the statements. With regard to the Kempton Park case, he could not understand how they were not committing an offence on the race-course while they were condemned for doing the same thing in public-houses.

Mr. HORACE SMITH, Metropolitan Police Magistrate, said he entirely concurred with what Sir A. de Rutzen had said with regard to the need for more repressing laws. Where the crime had been one of fraud or embezzlement he had invariably found that betting had been at the bottom of it.

Mr. LUKE SHARP, Official Receiver for Birmingham, gave evidence upon betting as a cause of bankruptcy.

MASTER OF HARROW: Betting in the school was largely due to the parents, who encouraged it. It was chiefly in the form of sweepstakes on big races. They also suffered by circulars from foreign betting-houses, which the Post Office transmitted.

F. W. SPRUCE, a betting man, thought that the number of bookmakers had greatly increased, that the trade would be improved and street betting reduced by licensing, but that otherwise there should be free trade in professional betting.

JAMES SUTTERS, another betting man, also advocated licensing. He thought that street betting might with advantage be restrained, but considered it a very respectable trade, although he agreed that it was not becoming for women.

Mr. CHARLES GOULD, J.P., Epsom, had complained to the Home Office of the inadequacy of the police force sent to Epsom Races. The last communication he had received was to the effect that the Home Secretary had been informed that as there were several thousands of these dishonest betting men, it would be impossible to provide sufficient police protection.

Mr. RUSSELL ALLEN, managing proprietor of the _Manchester Evening News_, gave evidence as to the harm done by the betting press, particularly the halfpenny papers, with their racing editions, which conduced largely to the class of betting done in the street by working men, concerning which he read letters from employers of labour attributing fraud and embezzlement to their work-people betting. Great numbers of bets were also made inside the works. His own newspaper had given up tips and tipsters’ advertisements, and had suffered accordingly. It was not prudent for a newspaper to go beyond that single-handed. If starting prices were made illegal of publication for all alike, it would have a great effect.

Superintendent SHANNON, of the L Division, Metropolitan Police, had had great experience of the evils of street betting. Last year[14] in Lambeth 441 persons had been proceeded against. They were fined over £2000 in all. One man was fined sixteen times in the year. Every large firm’s employees in South London were waited on by one or more bookmakers. All the bookmakers employed scouts to give them warning.

Superintendent WELLS, of the Limehouse Division, said there had been a great increase in street betting in East London in the last few years. One man was fined twenty-eight times and one twenty-seven. The bookmakers took up their stands outside the railway stations and factories, and in the busy streets. They were thus enabled to catch the workmen going to or from their work.

Lord Provost CHISHOLM, of Glasgow, gave evidence with the knowledge and sanction of the Corporation. Betting had increased all round, especially street betting with the industrial classes. He spoke both from personal knowledge and the complaints made to him by citizens. Betting was carried on to a large extent in factories and workshops, the bookmakers sometimes having their own agents employed in them. He would make the penalties more severe, and would seize all money found on bookmakers and imprison them. He believed public opinion would support such measures. He was opposed to licensing bookmakers. Women were in the habit of betting with bookmakers like men.

CHIEF CONSTABLE OF GLASGOW: He agreed with the evidence of the previous witness. Licensing would only encourage the bookmakers. They ought to be imprisoned. There was very great risk of the police being tampered with by bookmakers. Some had already been bribed. Many Glasgow bookmakers did business by telegram and letter. The Post Office had been complained to, but could do nothing.

Mr. BRYAN THOMAS, Hon. Sec. of a Labour Organisation, said he had forty years’ experience among the working men of East London. He would do away with street betting entirely. He would treat the bookmakers as rogues, and give them three months’ hard labour.

Rt. Hon. JAS. LOWTHER, M.P., a member of the Jockey Club for twenty-five years, did not think that large bets had increased of late years, but betting was more widely diffused, and not confined to sporting circles. He considered that there had been a great increase of betting all round. He could not suggest any way of reducing the misery caused by it. He saw difficulties in the way of licensing bookmakers.

Mr. W. B. WOODGATE, the well-known aquatic authority, would license bookmakers, and would fine any of them practising without a licence £500 or six months’ hard labour. The witness related a case of police bribing which he had brought before the authorities at Scotland Yard, but it ended in nothing owing to their careless handling of it.

Mr. EDWARD HULTON,[15] jun., of the Manchester _Sporting Chronicle_, was against the prohibiting the publication of the odds, and in favour of licensing bookmakers.

Mr. J. BAIN, formerly a member of Tattersall’s Club, also of the Victoria, Beaufort, and Albert Clubs, gave evidence as to the poisoning of race-horses for the purposes of the betting market, and how leading bookmakers were laying heavily at the club against the poisoned horses before the general public knew of what had been done. He also showed that many of the prices quoted in the newspapers were mere bogus quotations to induce the outside public to bet.

Colonel TANNETT WALKER, a large employer of labour at engineering works near Leeds, said that betting was the very worst thing any one could take to, and did a great deal of harm. The workman very often knew nothing whatever of horses. His usefulness was destroyed by betting, however skilful he might be, as so much of his time and thought were taken up with it. He would favour anything that would put a stop to street betting. The boys were encouraged to bet in the workshops.

Mr. LAMB, second secretary to the Post Office, said there were 82 special telegraphists engaged at Doncaster Races; 30,000 private telegrams were sent off. Gambling in any form was regarded as a most serious offence in that Department, and any of its servants are thereby rendered liable to dismissal. Employees were often tempted in the course of their duty while attending to betting telegrams.

Sir ROBERT HUNTER, solicitor to the Post Office, explained that there was not the same power over betting as over lottery communications, owing to an interpretation of the Advertising Act of 1874 confining it to such betting as was localised in a particular house or place.

The DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, Minister for Education, had been engaged on racing for a considerable time. Thought that there was nothing wrong or immoral in betting. He would very much regret its being stopped: it would seriously injure the national amusement of horse-racing. He thought betting the support of racing. Saw nothing wrong in the bookmaker’s profession, and, in reply to a question as to their taking small sums from children in poor neighbourhoods, he said he had no knowledge of that sort of betting. He could not give any opinion about licensing. He did not know at what point betting was too general.