Page 4, 24th June 1966

24th June 1966

Page 4

Page 4, 24th June 1966 — Knock the 'Bookies' and Bingo
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Knock the 'Bookies' and Bingo

by Norman St. John-Stevas
BETTING and gambling have become one of Britain's greatest social evils. I am not one of those who regard gambling as intrinsically evil but think it an activity that must be judged in the light of general social conditions and the particular personal circumstances of the person making the wager or bet.
The phenomenal rise in gambling of every kind since the Betting and Gaming Act of 1960 legalised betting offices and gambling establishments is a cause of deep concern to many people like myself, who did not foresee that this in
crease would result from passing the Act.
Today the gambling turnover is estimated to be over 1:900 million a year of which two thirds is staked on horses. This figure excludes gaming in clubs for which it is impossible to get any reliable figures.
Nobody can be happy about this appalling state of affairs which brings misery and suffering to many homes. What, then, can be done?
First, I think the clergy themselves should set an example by abandoning schemes to raise money by football pools and other competitions of chance and substitute for these systems of Christian giving which would involve many people in church and parish activities.
Action is also needed by the mute. We do not want to go hack to the had old days of illegal street betting but taxation policy should be used as a means of cutting down and controlling betting and gambling.
In the budget this year the Chancellor introduced a betting tax and I welcome it as far as it goes.
The trouble is that it does
not go far enough and is going to be very difficult to enforce. The Chancellor proposes to tax betting turnover at a rate of 21 per cent per year. This he estimates will yield a mere £11 million in a full year.
Even this may well be an optimistic estimate. The difficulty with taxing turnover is that there is no satisfactory way of finding out what a bookie's turnover actually is. Many transactions are purely verbal or conducted on scraps of paper.
It is a bad principle to establish a tax which is in effect an invitation to evasion. What the Chancellor in fact is doing is creating an occasion of sin for bookmakers!
It would have been much better to have based the tax on winnings rather than on turnover.
The bookie has a direct interest in keeping accurate records of winnings so that they can be included in his ordinary income tax returns. Conscience in this case would be buttressed by self-interest.
I also favour the raising of the tax to a much higher level so that it would really have a deterrent effect on new betting offices being opened.
Ultimately I favour the abolition of betting in the form we know it today and the establishment of a tote monopoly.
This is the only way for example to get any sizable amount of money for investment in British racing.
At the moment bookies pay a levy to support racing but it produces only a totally inadequate sum of £3 million a year.
By contrast France which has a tote monopoly has a levy which raises £130 million a year, much of which is invested in improving bloodstock and amenities at race courses.
if you cannot get rid of gambling altogether and I fear you cannot, you might as well make it serve some socially useful purpose such as providing a reasonable means of relaxation and helping British exports.
The Chancellor also proposes to tax gambling establishments as such. Quite rightly he has decided not to attempt to tax their turnover but to impose a tax related to rateable value, the higher the rateable value the higher the tax. The danger of this tax is that if it is too steeply graded so that premises with a low rateable value pay little tax and those with high rateable value a lot, the sleazier type of gambling establishment which rapidly becomes a centre of drug peddling and prostitution will he encouraged.
The government should devise a tax scheme which would encourage the association of gambling with other activities such as eating, dancing and so on so that it does not become an activity totally isolated from general social life.
Gambling is not confined to Britain but its growth is one of the symptoms of the moral crisis through which the country is now passing. The duty of the government is to curb the gambling niania by all reasonable means but ultimately it comes back to a problem of individual responsibility and choice.
In our present situation I believe that there is a duty on every citizen to cut back on betting and so avoid contributing to the "get rich quick" mentality which unfortunately is so widespread, especially among young people today.




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