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:—