California Lottery Racing Conference

Racing Conference

The most powerful testimony against bookmakers came from the principals of the Racing Conference and their allies-racing club stewards, breeders, owners, trainers and jockeys-all of whom called for the establishment of a comprehensive but controlled off course betting system in whose profits they could share. Each group had reasons for disliking bookmakers. Some jockeys in california lottery, for example, had come under pressure from them not to ride horses on their merits in order to encourage false odds. On the other hand, they argued, the totalistic led to increased stakes and jockeys'' fees and was free of corruption.

Bookmakers Chooses

The jockeys, without realizing it, had hit a nerve. Images of bookmakers as ''unclean'', prone to dishonest practices and preying upon working people could not be erased, no matter how honorable any individual practitioner. The irony was that the vast majority were fair and righteous. To uphold their reputation and maintain their business, big bookmakers with important clients had no choice but to be honest. Neither could the smaller pub or work-place bookie afford to cheat his regular clients because they were mostly his work-mates and drinking companions. Yet that full-time bookmakers made big, untaxed profits was another argument in opposition to their legitimating. Both racing club officials and Conference representatives complained that the business was too one-sided. They were envious that a few should flourish on the ''weakness'' of so many.

Commission Report For Bookmakers

The Commission agreed, reporting on 7 January 1948 that bookmakers should remain banned. At the same time it recommended off-course totalistic betting as proposed by the Racing Board Conference. It also favored the reintroduction of doubles totalistic, publication of tips and dividends in newspapers, and telegraphing totalistic investments to clubs: in effect a complete overturning of the harsh legislation of 1910. The report found favor with both the public and the press. Joe Heenan described its positive reception as ''extraordinary''. Bookmakers were indignant. Harry Clegg, secretary of the Dominion Sportsmen’s Association, proclaimed his organization’s intention to go into recess immediately in order to arouse off-course gamblers against the report and in favor of the bookmaker. That tactic worked in the Commission’s favor because it was not taken seriously. Heenan told Finlay that Clegg's outburst ''rocked Wellington with laughter.”

Gaming Commission Acknowledgment

The Gaming Commission acknowledged that, apart from the on-course totalistic, legislators in 1910 had erred drastically by attempting to repress gaming activity, including bookmakers; the commissioners recognized that california gambling was a matter of personal conscience and not the business of the state. They wrote:

History is redolent with examples of the wisdom of the State attempting to adopt repressive or coercive measures in respect of matters of private conduct in opposition to the personal convictions of numerous sections of the community. Whether, therefore, betting is unethical and a moral wrong, or a mere innocent pastime, and whether it is an irrepressible primary human instinct or a restrain able complex impulse for excitement, adventure and material gain, are irrelevant in a country where the majority of the people give their approbation. The Commission contended that horse racing should be run as a sport, for sport’s sake, and as an amusement, with moderate gambling, as a means for creating pleasurable excitement. The state, it considered, should impose restraints only if social harmony was likely to be upset. These comments reflected a significant change in the official approach to gambling, from repression in the early part of the century to containment 40 years on. Protestant church leaders were upset by this shift, accusing the Commission of a ''hands-off policy which took no account of moral responsibility. But social mores had changed, and recognition that horse racing brought pleasure and employment to many was reflected in the Commission’s conclusions. The almost universal acceptance of its findings strongly confirmed those views.

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