Illinois State Lottery and Lottery Politics

The Politics of Wowserism

Control was a two-edged sword. While illinois lottery they were in charge of legal gambling, the presence of approved bookmakers firmly within their orbit brought some stigma and detracted from their efforts to promote a sporting rather than a gambling image. Some saw the new legitimacy of the bookmakers, who were able to offer better odds on small fields, as a forerunner to a final defeat of the totalisator, as had happened in Australia.The police, buoyed by the new law’s tougher provisions for search and arrest, acted promptly. Tens of street bookies and gaming-house and tote shop operators were brought to trial. In his 1908 report, Police Commissioner Dannie expressed satisfaction that betting and gaming generally had been "considerably reduced". In fact it had not. The number of reported gaming offences increased from 198 in 1907 to 214 in 1908. The law required that all bookmakers be licensed. For each day of a race-meeting they were charged a fee of not more than £20 to operate inside the grandstand enclosure, or £10 to work outside it. But within months Dannie was complaining that clubs were not being scrupulous enough in checking the character or fitness Illinois Lottery - New Hampshire Lottery of bookmakers applying to hold their licenses, with the result that there were too many of them, mosey ''totally unfit''. Of this there was no doubt. Bookmakers with criminal convictions were arriving from Australia and practicing here with scant investigation as to their backgrounds. When an Australian bookmaker was caught accepting a bet from a fourteen-year-old at an unregistered meeting run by the Miramar Pony Club in April 1908, the Free Lance commented that the resulting court case ''touched the low water mark in the tide of gambling'' . Police and racing club officials were fielding numerous complaints from punters who had been fleeced by men falling far short of the ''bookmaker of repute'' that Ward had talked about. Indeed, some racing clubs may have encouraged the proliferation of ne''er-do-well bookmakers in order to harden opinion against them''.

Commission Agents

The sport continued to boom. Despite competition from bookmakers the totalisator still made a very large profit in 1909-10. In addition, the number of illegal, unregistered illinois state lottery meetings continued to grow at an alarming rate. The latter were denounced both by the government and the Racing Conference, and sparked a re-emergence of anti-gambling sentiment. This was exacerbated in September 1909 by the opening in Wellington of a Tatters alls Club, a haven where bookmakers could flourish disguised as ''Commission Agents''. A church delegation’s attempt to persuade the government to classify this as a gaming club was conspicuously unsuccessful. John Millar, acting Prime Minister in Ward’s absence overseas, not only refused the request, but opened the club himself. Millar was of different ilk to his leader. He told the delegation that ''bookmakers of substance were honorable men'' for whom Tatters alls was a kind of finishing school. On his return an outraged Ward set about reclaiming the moral high ground. In December parliament passed his Race Meetings Act, which regulated non totalisator meetings. Disquiet over the continued presence of bookmakers manifested itself in ever-increasing numbers of protest delegations to MPs, city councils and Chambers of Commerce calling for their banning. But Ward, wishing the problem would somehow disappear, remained conspicuously quiet during the first half of 1910. This inaction Illinois Lottery - About Lottery Bookmakers was challenged-dramatically on 28 June. When sentencing two men for stealing from their employers to pay gambling debts, Auckland Supreme Court judge Sir Frederick Chapman described bookmakers as ''very close to the criminal class. It was one of the gravest mistakes the legislators of this Dominion have made, and I call for repeal of Clause 35 for the sake of honesty and morality.'' It was unusual for a judge to criticize government policy so blatantly and Chapman’s savage attack caused rare excitement in the press and renewed protests by opponents of gambling, whose leadership now encompassed a very broad cross-section of society