ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a comparative analysis of some responses to illegal off-course betting and bookmaking in twentieth-century Britain and Australia. The focus is on the development of public policy and law enforcement, and their interrelations with national popular cultures. Australia and Britain are fundamentally comparable in terms of economic and social structure, legal system, dominant political ideology and class relations. In addition, early Australian betting and sporting practices and laws were heavily influenced by those in Britain. However, specific differences (for example, in policing traditions, fiscal policies, working-class composition, and intra-state relations) can be identified as having produced divergent strategies in the control of popular gambling.
