Sport: Betting Reborn

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In Olympia. Wash., Governor Clarence D. Martin last fortnight signed a bill legalizing pari-mutuel betting on horse races, which has been forbidden in Washington since 1909.

In Indianapolis, the Indiana State Senate last fortnight passed a bill to legalize pari-mutuel betting on horse and dog races.

In Santa Fe, Governor Arthur Seligman last fortnight signed a bill legalizing horse racing with pari-mutuel betting.

In Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma House of Representatives last week passed a bill to legalize horse racing with pari-mutuel betting.

In Concord the New Hampshire House of Representatives last week voted to legalize pari-mutuel betting at racetracks.

In all, the legislatures of 20 states were last week considering legalized race betting. Causes of this sudden wave of liberalizing seemed to be several: an extension of the anti-Puritanism that brought about the proposed 21st Amendment; the spread of interest in horse racing due to better management, better horses; the prospect of state revenues from betting. Wherever there is pari-mutuel betting, the state takes a percentage of the total amount wagered. Pari-mutuel betting is legal in Maryland, Kentucky, Illinois. Louisiana, Nevada. Montana, and, since 1931, Florida. This year, bets at Florida's No. 1 track, Hialeah Park, totaled $8,000,000, $2,000,000 more than last year.

In making a bet by the pari-mutuel system, a better goes to one of a row of windows, states the amount of his bet and the name of his horse, pays his money to a clerk, receives in exchange a ticket recording the transaction which he can cash after the race if his horse wins. The clerk records the bet; during the race, the odds on each horse are determined with mathematical fairness in ratio to the amount of money bet on each.

Commonest objection to legalizing pari-mutuel betting on horse races: it might pave the way for gambling on dog races, slot-machines, lotteries. New York State tried to evade this difficulty in 1913 by legalizing "oral" but not pari-mutuel betting. "Oral" bets (i. e., bets handled by bookmakers), where most racetracks are run at a loss, are estimated at $68,000,000 a year. To legalize pari-mutuel betting in New York would require an amendment to the State constitution, a referendum in 1935. To avoid delay, Assemblyman William Breitenbach was last week urging passage of a bill simply to rescind the penalties for pari-mutuel betting, to let it start up at once.