Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/259

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HORSE-RACING AND GAMBLING
165

about a quarter of a million dollars a year in stamp duty and a dividend tax on prizes.

The "fixtures" on which Tattersall's yearly promotes "consultations" — what an agreeable word this is! — are eighteen different race-meets in Australia and Tasmania, representing a grand total of nearly two million tickets, exclusive of oversubscriptions, which sometimes are very large. The chief drawing is on the Melbourne Cup, for which 300,000 tickets, one third being ten-shilling subscriptions, are originally issued. In the ten-shilling issues the first horse draws $50,000, or twice as much as the highest prize allotted to the most fortunate holder of a five-shilling ticket.

In New Zealand, Tattersall's does an enormous business, despite the New Zealand Post-Office Department's refusal to forward any mail addressed to Tattersall's or to any addressee known by the department to represent it. How then does Tattersall's get the money sent to it from the Dominion? By bank drafts, through the aid of friends in Tasmania, and through men in New Zealand who for a small fee forward the subscriptions to Hobart. Tattersall's clients are cautioned not to send post-office money orders, and they are advised to send their letters to "any friend in Hobart, who will have no difficulty in seeing that the letter reaches the proper hands." There are many "friends" in Hobart.

Playing the races and taking chances with Tattersall's are by no means the only forms of gambling in New Zealand. In that country the gaming instinct is very