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CHAPTER XVI

Betting Houses-Their suppression in 1853-Bookmakers and their ClientsDefaulters-Dwyer's swindle-Value of Stakes.

IN Chambers' Edinburgh Journal of 24th July 1852, is an excellent article on "BETTING HOUSES." It says:

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Betting Shop' is vulgar, and we dislike vulgarity. 'Commission Office,' 'Racing Bank,'' Mr Hopposite Green's Office,' 'Betting Office,' are the styles of announcement adopted by speculators, who open, what low people call, Betting Shops. The chosen designation is, usually, painted in gold letters on a chocolate coloured wire gauze blind, impervious to the view. A betting office may display on its small show board, two bronzed plaster horses, rampant, held by two Ethiopian figures, nude; or it may prefer making a show of cigars. Many offices have risen out of simple cigar shops. When this is the case, the tobacco business gives way, the slow trade and fast profession not running well together. An official appearance is always considered necessary. A partition, therefore, sufficiently high not to be peered over, runs midway across the shop, surmounted with a rail. By such means, visions are suggested to the intelligent mind, of desks, and clerks. In the partition is an enlarged pigeon hole-not far off, may be supposed to lurk the hawk-through which are received shillings, half crowns; in fact, any kind of coin or notes, no sum appearing inadmissible. The office is papered with a warm crimson paper to make it snug and comfortable, pleasant as a lounge, and casting a genial glow upon the proceedings.

"But the betting lists are the attraction-these are the dice of the betting men; a section of one of the side walls

within the office is devoted to them. They consist of long slips of paper-each race having its own slip-on which are stated the odds against the horses. Hasty and anxious are the glances which the speculator casts upon betting lists; there he sees which are the favourites, whether those he has backed are advancing, or retrograding, and he endeavours to discover, by signs and testimonies, by all kinds of movements and dodges, the knowing one's opinion. He will drop fishing words to other gazers, will try to overhear whispered remarks, will sidle towards any jockey-legged, or ecurial-costumed individual, and aim more especially at getting into the good graces of the betting office keeper, who, when his business is slack, comes forth from behind the partition, and from the duties of the pigeon hole, to stretch his legs, and hold turf converse. The betting office keeper is the speculator's divinity.

Some are

"There are various kinds of betting offices. speculative, May-fly offices, open to-day, and shut to-morrow -offices that will bet any way, and against anything-that will accommodate themselves to any odds-receive any sum they can get, small or large; and, should a misfortune occur, such as a wrong horse winning, forget to open next day. These are but second rate offices. The money making, prosperous betting office is quite a different thing. It is not advisable for concerns which intend making thousands in a few years, to pay the superintendents liberally, and to keep well clothed touters to conduct themselves, in short, like speculative offices. They must not depend entirely upon chance. Chance is very well for betting men, but will not do for the respectable betting office keepers, who are the stake holders.

"The plan adopted is a very simple one, but ingenious in its simplicity. The betting office takes a great dislike in its own mind to a particular horse, the favourite of the betting men. It makes bets against that horse, which amounts, in the aggregate, to a fortune; and then it buys the object of

its frantic delight. This being effected, the horse, of course, loses, and the office wins. How could it be otherwise? Would you have a horse win against its owner's interest? The thing being settled, the office, in order to ascertain the amount of its winnings, has only to deduct the price of the horse from its aggregate bets, and arrange the remainder in a line of, perhaps, five figures. Whereupon the betting men grow seedier and more seedy: some of the more mercurial go off in a fit of apoplectic amazement; some betake themselves to Waterloo stairs on a moonless night; some proceed to the diggings, some to St Luke's, and some to the dogs; some become so unsteady, that they sign the wrong name to a draft, or enter the wrong house at night, or are detected in a crowd with their hand in the wrong man's pocket. But, by degrees, everything comes right again. The insane are shut up, the desperate transported, the dead buried, the deserted families carted to the workhouse; and the betting-office goes on as before."

The scandal, however, grew too grave to be ignored, and the Government took the matter up. On July 11, 1853, the Attorney-General rose in his place in the House of Commons, and said, he would now beg to move for leave to bring in a Bill for the suppression of betting houses, and, in doing so, he considered it was not necessary for him to make any lengthened statement on the subject, as the evils which had arisen from the introduction of these establishments were perfectly notorious, and acknowledged upon all hands. The difficulty, however, which arose in legislating upon this subject, was the disinclination which was felt against interfering with that description of betting which had so long existed at Tattersall's and elsewhere, in connection with the great national sport of horse racing. But these establishments assumed a totally different aspect a new form of betting was introduced, which had been productive of the greatest evils. The course, now, is to open a house, and for the owner to hold himself forth as ready to bet with all comers, contrary to the usage which had prevailed at

such places as Tattersall's, where individuals betted with each other, but no one there kept a gaming table, or, in other words, held a bag against all comers. The object, then, of this Bill, was to suppress these houses, without interfering with that legitimate species of betting, to which he had referred. It would prohibit the opening of houses, or shops or booths, for the purpose of betting; and, inasmuch as it appeared that the mischief of the existing vicious system seemed to arise from the advancing of money, in the first instance, with the expectation of receiving a larger sum on the completion of a certain event, it was proposed to prohibit the practice, by distinct legislative enactment. The mischief arising from the existence of these betting shops was perfectly notorious. Servants, apprentices, and workmen, induced by the temptation of receiving a large sum for a small one, took their few shillings to these places, and the first effect of their losing, was to tempt them to go on spending their money in the hope of retrieving their losses; and, for this purpose, it not unfrequently happened that they were driven into robbing their masters and employers. There was not a prison, nor a house of correction in London, which did not every day furnish abundant and conclusive testimony of the vast number of youths who were led into crime by the temptation of these establishments of which there were from 100 to 150 in the metropolis alone, while there were a considerable number in the large towns of the provinces. He believed this bill would have the effect of suppressing most of them; or, at all events, of preventing the spread of an evil which was admitted on all hands. had been suggested that the more effectual course would be the licensing of these houses; but, for his own part, he believed that would be discreditable to the Government, and would only tend to increase the mischief instead of preventing it. He trusted and believed that the Bill which he now sought to introduce would have the desired effect, and he hoped the House would offer no objection to his bringing it in.

It

Leave was given, and the Bill was so in accord with the feeling of the House, that it went through all its stages without debate, and received the Royal Assent on 20th Aug. 1853, under the title of "An Act for the suppression of Betting Houses," 16 & 17 Victoria, cap. 119: it became operative on 1st Dec. 1853. Its principal clause is Sec. iii., which deals with the penalty on owner or occupier of Betting House. "Any Person who, being the Owner, or Occupier of any House, Office, Room, or other Place, or a Person using the same, shall open, keep, or use the same for the Purposes hereinbefore mentioned, or either of them; and any Person, who, being the Owner, or Occupier, of any House, Room, Office, or other Place, shall, knowingly, and wilfully, permit the same to be opened, kept, or used by any other Person for the purposes aforesaid, or either of them; and any Person having the Care, or Management of, or in any Manner assisting in conducting the business of any House, Office, Room, or Place opened, kept, or used for the Purposes aforesaid, or either of them, shall, on summary Conviction thereof, before any Two Justices of the Peace, be liable to forfeit and pay such Penalty, not exceeding One Hundred Pounds, as shall be adjudged by such Justices, and may be further adjudged by such Justices, to pay such Costs attending such conviction, as to the said Justices shall seem reasonable; and, on the Nonpayment of such Penalty and Costs; or, in the first instance, if to the said Justices, it shall seem fit, may be committed to the Common Gaol, or House of Correction, with, or without, Hard Labour, for any Time not exceeding Six Calendar Months."

The effect of this Act was to shut up, for the time, the betting houses, but nobody can deny that there is as much of this ready money betting now as ever there was, and there is no difficulty in getting "a little bit on," if one wants to, without attending races and betting with the professional bookmakers there to be found. Children can lay their pennies and errand boys their sixpences, and, throughout the length and breadth of the country, the curse of betting

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