Gambling

Series

Series Name

This Modern Age

Issue

Issue No.

29

Date Released

Aug 1949

Length of issue (in feet)

1868

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Gambling

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

BFI synopsis: The gambling industry in Great Britain. A silent film and survey of the Chamber of Horrors illustrate the lengths to which a gambler can be led. Man will gamble anywhere and on anything - in Nigerian markets, Monte Carlo in the back streets of Australia. Some may gamble on their future - the gold rush and the stock exchange. They will wager on dogs, cars and even guinea pigs. A Royal Commission on Gambling first met on May 10th, 1949 to survey the position in Britain. The three chief forms of gambling - football pools, dog-racing and horse-racing. Stable boys and kennel men in their hundreds are employed to look after the animals concerned. Sales of horses and dogs means a continuous flow of money - more leaving the country to pay for dogs than is brought in by the sale of our race horses. The printing industry is affected by gambling - punter coupons as well as their special newspapers. As many as 400 policemen may be required at a large race meeting. An integral part of the race-course, nowadays is the fairground, round- abouts, sideshows and refreshment stands are all necessary, even incidental forms of gambling - card tricks and so on. Each of the hundreds of bookies employs a clerk; the tick-tack men are another necessity. The Tote employs a hard-core of full-time workers, recruiting hundreds of part-timers at each meeting. Off-course bookies offices employ many more clerks. Football-pools mail brings the Postmaster General about £2,000,000 p.a. The thousands of employees needed to sort coupons and money is a serious drain on Britain’s labour force. Altogether more than one- third of a million people are employed by the gambling industry. More taxation may be the answer. For hundreds of years, moralists have tried to stop gambling. The laws are bad, unintentionally helping the rich to gamble legally while preventing the poor from doing so. If money could be sent with coupons, football pool organisers say they could cut their staff by nearly two thirds. Gambling machines may or may not be illegal. The police destroy those that operate against the law. Private gambling perhaps for charity usually legal but anything organised for profit such as roulette parties with professional croupiers etc. is strictly illegal. Wagers are made on all forms of sport in one way or another. In some countries, government sponsored lotteries or sweepstakes have been used for many years as a way of controlling the gambling instinct. Perhaps this is the answer for Britain where six out of seven people are affected by the industry some way or another.

Researcher Comments

Trade shown on 30 June 1949.

Keywords

Gambling; Entertainment and leisure; Economics

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Monthly Film Bulletin   Vol.16 No.188 August 1949, p148.
Enticknap, Leo. The Non-Fiction Film in Britain, 1945-1951 unpublished PhD thesis   p256.

Credits:

Producer

James Lansdale Hodson

Producer

Sergei Nolbandov

Production Co.

This Modern Age, Ltd.

Length of story (in feet)

1868

This series is held by:

Film Archive

Name

British Film Institute (BFI)

Email

For BFI National Archive enquiries:
nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk
For commercial/footage reuse enquiries:
footage.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7580 7503

Address

21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN

Notes

The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).

Series held

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