Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/256

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164
PICTURESQUE NEW ZEALAND

racing were stopped in that country, $5,000,000 would be withdrawn from circulation annually. The extent of the totalizator investments is astonishing. At Riccarton, where the annual attendance is about eighty thousand, the totalizator receipts for eleven days' racing in a recent year exceeded $900,000; and with bookmakers, whose occupation became illegal throughout New Zealand in 1911, the investments were many thousands more. At Ellerslie, Auckland's racecourse, in a later year, the totalizator returns were more than a million dollars.

It is a wonder, after such betting, that New Zealand racetrack habitués have any money left for other gambling. But they have; thousands of them always speculate in "Tatts." And what is "Tatts"? The greatest lottery concern in Australasia. Not officially. No, no! Officially it is Adams's Tattersall's monster cash prize consultation. "Tattersall's," says Tattersall's of itself, "are the only genuine successful consultations in Australasia, conducted under license from the Tasmanian Government, and drawn under special supervision of a representative of Government, and in the presence of the public and members of the press, also the police." Every year "the trustees of the late Mr. George Adams's estate . . . conduct the Sweep Business," says Tattersall's.

It certainly is a sweeping business, all around. From the public millions of dollars are swept by Tattersall's—which, however, retains only ten per cent of the whole—and the Tasmanian Government sweeps in