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44. As a result of the conditions which had accrued and the apparently widespread condemnation which they had evoked, the Gaming Amendment Act of 1910 was passed. By it bookmakers were prohibited from betting in any street or in any licensed premises or on any racecourse, subject to the sanction of a fine of not less than £2O and not exceeding £lOO for the first f offence, and to a like fine or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months for a second or subsequent offence. By section 4of the Act a positive duty was imposed upon racing clubs to use all reasonable and lawful means to prevent bookmakers plying their calling upon racecourses. Any default on the part of a racing club in this respect clothed the Minister with a right to revoke the club's licence to use the totalizator or to hold a race meeting under the Race Meetings Act, 1909, and to refuse to issue a further licence for one year after the revocation. • 45. Up to this point the operations of bookmakers were not made illegal by any express statutory or other declaration. Just where or how they could, in the circumstances, carry on their business, however, it is difficult to see. That difficulty found expression in the Judgment of Mr. Justice Salmond in The King v. Whitta [1921] N.Z.L.R. at page 521, where he said : Prior to the Act {i.e., the Act of 1920) the business of a bookmaker was not in itself illegal, although the law imposed severe restrictions on the manner in which such business could be carried on. Thus a bookmaker could not lawfully permit his place of business to be used for the purpose of making bets with persons resorting thereto or communicating therewith by post, telegraph, telephone, or otherwise : Gaming Act, 1908, s. 36. Nor could a bookmaker carry on his business in a street or other public place or on licensed premises or on a racecourse : Gaming Amendment Act, 1910, s. 2. 46. This Act of 1910 marks the origin in this country of that wholesale system of illegal off-course betting which, here as well as throughout Australia, has presented difficulties which are commonly regarded as insurmountable. It has found support in the very measures which were adopted to ensure the concentration of betting upon racecourses. By the abolition of the doubles totalizator the illegal bookmaker was left with a monopoly of doubles betting, a form of betting which is, and apparently always has been, very popular. Thus, too, the prohibition of the use of the telegraph and telephone as a means of putting money on the totalizator promoted his business, for it was only by transacting business with him that persons off the course could bet. In short, the legislators who supported the Act of 1907 failed to take into account the fact that those who could not or did not wish to attend the races would find some means of satisfying their desire to bet, and that, as bookmaking is profitable, there would not be wanting those who would be prepared to satisfy that desire, however illegal their proceedings might be.