DISCONTINUATION OF TOTO

6.00 p.m.

Madam Chan Choy Siong (Delta): (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, several month have elapsed since the Government in this House approved the introduction of Toto. After a close analysis and observation of Toto and the various reactions towards it, we have discovered one feature which is quite contradictory lo the purpose for which Toto was introduced by Government. This was to provide some kind of game for the public in order to raise funds from them for use in the construction of the National Sports Complex. Briefly, that was the original aim in introducing Toto.

As everybody knows, the main aim of the construction of the National Sports Complex is to provide a suitable place and adequate facilities for the training of our youths in the field of sports, which is in line with our national slogan of building a robust society. However, from the operation of Toto at the present juncture, we can see for ourselves that the trend is that we will finally end up with a loss instead of a gain. This is because Toto, as it is now, has become a form of gambling open to the public. Irrespective of their age, they indulge in this game. We can see that they come from the public service and other walks of life. Members of the civil service are so preoccupied with Toto that they do not pay much attention to their work. I have come across one case like this. A member of the civil service was on the phone and was asking what were the best numbers for the day. As a result of this, he might have neglected his duties. This was only a chance dis covery on my part. There are many other cases which may not have been discovered.

On the other hand, there are other more serious problems arising out of Toto. For instance, our innocent students are involved. As Toto is a legalised and open form of gambling, many students take an interest in it with the idea of having some fun. So they make use of their pocket money, which is meant for better purposes, to bet on Toto. I have received several letters in which the parents of these students complain about Toto. They say that their children take part in the game and they express anxiety for their children if Toto is allowed to continue. Mr Speaker, Sir, if the opinion is that Toto is not harmful to students, then I cannot understand why I have received such complaints from the parents. If we go further into the problem of Toto, we find ourselves faced with these questions. What will happen if a student strikes the first prize in Toto and what use will he make of the money? Does it mean that he will discontinue his studies and enjoy life on the prize money, or will he invest it in the Jurong Industrial Estate?

We do not have sufficient safeguards for our security. We know that in the past few months someone who was said to have won the first prize was followed closely by would-be extortioners, kidnappers or blackmailers. He received several ransom notes and before he got his prize money he kicked the bucket. These are some of the problems arising out of the introduction of Toto to which we should pay attention. Must we encourage our people to gain money by unhealthy means? Singapore is a young country. We can say that it is like a three-year old child who needs a great deal of nutrition and healthy thinking to enrich his mind in order that he may tread the path to a great future when he grows up.

If we feel that the National Sports Complex is so important in building a rugged society, then there should be adequate provision in the Budget for the construction of this sports complex. But why is it that it is not adequately provided in the Budget? This is rather ridiculous. If our Minister for Finance is unable to make adequate provision and calculate the cost of construction of the National Sports Complex, then we should try to raise funds from sports enthusiasts and rich businessmen who are interested in sports. We can persuade them and other philanthropists to donate money for the construction of the National Sports Complex, or alternatively, our Minister can set up a National Sports Fund Committee, along the same lines as the National Theatre Trust, to raise funds for this purpose. This National Sports Fund Committee will be empowered to raise funds for the purpose of constructing the National Sports Complex. This will be a better way than trying to obtain money through Toto.

In my view, 85 per cent of the money comes from the poor people who bet on Toto. This means that the con struction of the National Sports Complex will be financed by the poor people to the extent of 85 per cent. That being so, cannot we raise funds from some other sources? Why should we try to' fleece the poor at the expense of our innocent youths who will be open to the temptation of gambling, with all its dangers and ill effects? We all know that gambling is a sign of decay in a nation. We should not allow our young people to indulge in this most undesirable and decadent practice. We must abolish it.

In conclusion, I feel that Toto should not be allowed to continue in Singapore. This is because the benefits and profits derived from Toto are not entire ly used for the construction of the National Sports Complex. Some of the benefits are enjoyed by Singapore Pools (Private) Limited. Why should the Government allow this organisation to continue in existence? Finally, I submit once again that Toto should be discontinued.

6.15 p.m.

Mr Sim Boon Woo (Changi): Mr Speaker, Sir, for decades and decades, there have been many forms of illegal gambling in Singapore. Millions of dollars change hands every month in such forms of illegal gambling as chapji-kee, chee-fah, mahjong, pai-kow, fan-tan, 1,000 characters, 10,000 characters, 3-digits, 4-digits, punting and illegal off-course bookmaking. The monies involved in these forms of gambling only go towards enriching a handful of bookmakers and operators but are of no direct benefit to society.

With due respect to moral teachings and to the anxiety of religious leaders to uphold the moral standards of our nation, it appears to me that, generally speaking, gambling is in the blood. Even in legitimate businesses like trading in tin and rubber and on the Stock Exchange, the element of gambling is very marked.

Therefore, instead of allowing the numerous forms of illegal gambling to go on in Singapore, the Government has thought of a simple game of chance called "Toto" a game which the Member for Delta is so very much against - to help raise funds for a cause that will benefit society and the nation as a whole, namely, the building of a sports complex costing $60 million to promote sports and thereby help to build a rugged society in which there will be less and less of what I call the sissy type of citizens but more and more of the virile type.

Sir, some idealists might argue against Toto because it is a form of gambling, but let them suggest a better way of raising the money needed for such a worthy cause as a sports complex. They might suggest that the Government should appeal to the goodwill and patriotism of the people to donate to the fund, just as they have done so splendidly in donating to the National Defence Fund. This might be a better way, but it is not a sure way or an effective way. It will take a long, long time to raise the needed $60 million, and we must have the money by 1971 or 1972 when the sports complex will be completed.

Sir, the Government, in running public business, cannot be blind to reality. It has to be pragmatic and face realities.

Let it be borne in mind that without a Government-sponsored game of chance such as Toto, the illegal forms of gambling that have plagued Singapore will go on despite the tightening of the law against them. Therefore, even if Toto is regarded as an evil, let us choose the lesser evil of the two and channel the proceeds of this non-profit corporation to the general good of society and the country.

Sir, the British Museum was built with the proceeds of lotteries. So was the National Theatre of Australia. Let The sports complex of Singapore stand as a monument to the co-ordinated efforts of the Government and the people of Singapore in returning to the people what has been received from them in this painless, effective and almost effortless game of chance called "Toto".

6.20 p.m.

Mr Teong Eng Siong (Sembawang): (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, I am in agreement with the views expressed by the Member for Delta on Toto. I have discussed the subject of Toto with many people and they think that its evils outweigh its advantages. There are four reasons why I support the Member for Delta.

First, Toto will affect many families, especially housewives, in the lower income group. They may make use of their market-money and pocket-money and even the savings of their children to indulge in Toto. This will result in a lack of nutritional food for the children, and this is tantamount to maltreating them.

Second, the workers will be affected as they will throw away their money on Toto and their take-home pay will be less. They will not be able to make proper use of their wages to help their families.

Third, Toto is a bad influence on children and students. Whole families gather before their television sets to see whether the numbers that are drawn have been correctly guessed by them. To teach the people to get something for nothing is wrong and this is very damaging to the spiritual and moral values of the people. Therefore, this is contrary to the policy of building a rugged nation.

Fourth, Toto will encourage the cultivation of bad traits in our society. It may even pervade institutions of learning. I remember the Ministry of Education passed a circular forbidding teachers to indulge in Toto. If this trend is allowed to continue, more and more people will not stick to their jobs and they will become gamblers.

Mr Speaker. Sir,I am not in any way exaggerating what I have said, because an evil thing, starting in a small way, can grow bigger and bigger. Even cancer starts from the clotting of a tiny cell. The Minister in charge of Toto may argue that the purpose of Toto is to raise funds for the building of a national sports complex. That, I agree, is a good and proper objective, but the necessary funds should not be raised by means of gambling. I am sure there are better ways of raising the money needed for the building of this national sports complex. If donations for this worthy cause are allowed to be deductible from income tax, I am sure wealthy people, capitalists and commercial firms will donate. So I think we should rely on other means to raise the necessary funds for the completion of the national sports complex, it is improper to rely on Toto for this purpose.

I agree with the view of the Member for Delta that Toto should be discontinued.

6.24 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Affairs (Mr Chan Chee Seng): (In Mandarin): As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Affairs and as Toto is a subject under my charge, I have to say a few words on it.

I feel that a person who does not want to gamble cannot be coerced into gambling. For instance, even Members of Parliament who want to gamble can do so. Even prisoners gamble among themselves, although they are prohibited from doing so. I have learnt that they use match-sticks to gamble, if a fly alights on the match-stick belonging to a prisoner, he is declared the winner. In other words, if a person is inclined to gamble, he will do so under any conditions. If Toto is discontinued, the gamblers will turn to other forms of gambling.

The Member for Changi spoke about various forms of gambling, such as chap-ji-kee, 1,000 characters, 10,000 characters, and so on. It is very difficult for us to prohibit gambling. We are all concerned about the welfare of the people of this country. We want to make sure that they can go through trials and tribulations, if we tell them only about the good side of things and do not tell them about the bad side, they will collapse when they are faced with it. This will not be good for our people. Ours is a newly independent country and the people should be able to endure all kinds of trials and tribulations. For instance, donations have been made for various purposes. My con stituents have been asked to donate towards a road-building fund and they have been urged to donate more money to build better facilities and improve the appearance of their constituency. They will then have a good impression of us and we will be able to win them over again at the next elections.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Minister for Finance has said earlier that the raising of certain taxes is inevitable because of an increase in the Defence expenditure. Some people are against any increase in taxes. If we do not impose additional taxes, we will not be able to meet our increased expenditure.

The decision to introduce Toto into Singapore was arrived at after consultations with various committees. Toto is not the best means to raise funds to build a sports complex. But then we do not have enough funds without recourse to Toto for that purpose. Members of Parliament and all the people cannot donate enough to the fund, although they pay lip service to this project.

If we do not have enough funds to pay the necessary personnel required to run the sports complex, what then is the way open to us? There is a need today for Toto in order to raise funds for our national sports complex. All along we have been talking about the building of a rugged, brave and healthy society. But it is easier said than done. Whatever we intend to do, we must have the means to accomplish it. For instance, we must have nourishment to sustain our people. But what are we going to do if we do not have any funds? Every day we can see people indulging in many forms of gambling, not just chap-ji-kee and chee-fah. Why should we not divert the money being spent on these illegal forms of gambling to a legal form like Toto, the proceeds of which can be used to build a sports complex? if there is any surplus from the proceeds, we can also make use of it to promote various forms of sports and athletic activities.

I do not deny that some of the remarks made by some Members just now are quite correct. But I cannot agree when they say that Toto will cause the people of Singapore to have bad habits, that it will have a bad effect on the family, that it will break up the family, with evil consequences. I think the people of Singapore are wise enough to be able to avoid all this. They know what they are doing.

6.35 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr Tang See Chim): Mr Speaker, Sir,I think the case for Toto has been eloquently put forward by the Members for Changi and Jalan Besar. What I now intend to do is to answer the points which have been raised by the Members for Delta and Sembawang. They have based their case on the very wrong assumption that Toto is the root of all evil; that there was no gambling in Singapore until the introduction of Toto, and that Toto is responsible for a host of sins that are so general and unspecific that it is difficult either to substantiate or re pudiate them, it is just the feeling of these two Members. They appeal to the emotion rather than to the intellect.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we all know that gambling is as old as the hills. Ever since Singapore was founded, there has been gambling. When the immigrant population came to settle here, gambling came with them too. The Member for Changi has given us a long list of the various forms of gambling, like chap-ji-kee, pai-kow and all the rest of them. In fact, they were so prevalent in Singapore that the police had a hard time trying to control illegal gambling.

The idea of introducing Toto is not only to channel part of the proceeds to a worthy cause, which otherwise would have gone to line the pockets of illegal operators, but also to control illegal gambling. Part of the reason for the introduction of Toto is therefore the very cogent one of trying to control illegal gambling.

With your permission, Mr Speaker, may i quote from the Report of the Royal Commission on Gambling which was appointed by the United Kingdom Government sometime towards the end of the 1940's to inquire into gambling in the United Kingdom. This is the Report of the Royal Commission on Betting. Lotteries and Gambling, 1949/ 5/, and the passage I am going to quote is at page 61. The Report is dated 1951. It has this to say about private gambling:

'So long as these [meaning gambling facilities] are in private hands, it would be impossible entirely to prevent fraud, exploitation and inducements to gambling.'

Mr Speaker, Sir, if that is the case, so long as there is private illegal gambling it is very difficult to control the exploitations, fraud and inducenients to gambling. To that extent, placing gambling under control could prevent fraud and explcitation.

In fact, Toto is doing just that. If you want to gamble, you gamble. If you do not want to gamble, the Government cannot force you to gamble. What Toto does is to legalise a form of lottery so as to prevent those who have the habit of gambling and who gambled even when it was illegal ---- from being exploited and defrauded by illegal gambling operators. So the basic assumption that Toto is the root of the gambling habit in Singapore is wrong. Therefore, the Members for Delta and Sembawang have not made out a case against Toto. In fact, gambling is so prevalent that it is something, as the Member for Changi has said, which is in the blood.

May I now proceed to answer some of the very general allegations made by the two Members. The Member for Delta said that she had received letters written by parents saying that their children had acquired the habit of gambling on Toto. As I see it, if a parent cannot prevent his children from gambling on Toto, there is nothing that the Government can do about it. In fact, Government has done these children a good turn by legalising Toto, because had Toto not been legalised, they would in fact be infringing the law and they could, when caught in the act of gambling, be brought to court. This is a case of loss of parental control, and I think it does not speak well of the writers of those letters.

As to the allegation by the Member for Sembawang that because of gambling people use their money on Toto which they would otherwise have spent on food, this again is unsubstantiated. The allegation is so general that it is, in fact, quite difficult for me to repudiate it. I think it is equally difficult for him to substantiate the allegation. The point is that if a person has lost control over himself and prefers to spend the money on Toto rather than on food, then, from the economic theory point of view, it could be said that he gets more satisfaction out of playing Toto than spending money on food, in which case, good luck to him.

But all these arguments against Toto, I must repeat, Sir, are based on the basic assumption that Toto is the only form of gambling available in Singapore and that there is no other form of gambling. What happened before the introduction of Toto? Thousands of dollars, as the Member for Changi has said, went into other forms of gambling like chap-ji-kee, chee-fah and all the rest of them.

One good thing has come out of Toto, Mr Speaker, Sir. At least part of the proceeds of gambling which would otherwise have gone to enrich the illegal operators is now channelled to a very good cause - the building of a sports complex. The Member for Delta has asked why we should use this form of collection - why not ask the Government to provide for it in the Budget or ask for donations from well-wishers and sports fans? The reason, and it is a very cogent reason, why the Government cannot afford to make provision for a sports complex in the Budget has been given by the Finance Minister in this House this very afternoon. So I need not elaborate on it. With regard to donations from well-wishers, hon. Members will realise that in spite of the tremendous fervour shown towards our National Defence Fund, - mind you, contributions towards the National Defence Fund get income tax rebate -yet after nearly a year's efforts to date, we have got only $8 million. The sports complex costs some $60 million. Just the other day, on 12th November. Singapore Pools (Private) Limited (the operators of Toto) handed over to the Minister for Social Affairs a cheque for $2 million towards the building of the sports complex.

This sort of legalised lottery is very common all over the world - both in socialist countries and in capitalist countries. I have here a research paper prepared for the international Monetary Fund. (But it is expressly stated that the opinion expressed in the paper need not necessarily reflect the views of the Fund.) This is a very authoritative paper prepared by one Juanita D. Amatong for the international Monetary Fund and it is dated 16th April. 1968. The title of this research paper is The Revenue importance of Government Lotteries. I would like to read the conclusion of this research paper to the House.

'Barring social and moral objections to lottery, it seems worthwhile for developing countries to explore further this particular source of revenue. Government operation of a lottery tends to shift gambling gains from private hands to the government, and may minimize its possible regressive effects by using the proceeds for general welfare purposes.'

Two studies done independently -the Royal Commission Report which I just quoted as well as this paper - come out in favour of public lotteries. In this study, a list of 66 countries are shown to have government lotteries and they range from socialist countries to capitalist countries both in the East and in the West. May II just quote a few of these countries - the ones in Asia. They are Burma, Cambodia. Ceylon, Malaysia, the Philippines. Thailand. Indonesia. Japan and Nepal.

An hon. Member: Singapore!

Mr Tang See Chim: There are 66 countries on the list and if the Member for Delta likes me to read all of them out, I shall be delighted to do so.

Mr Speaker: Mr Tang, does the paper you are quoting from appear in published form anywhere?

Mr Tang See Chim: it appears in published form. It is a document of the International Monetary Fund.

Mr Speaker: Perhaps you might place a copy in the Library for use of Members.

Mr Tang See Chim: Yes, I will submit a copy if Members want to refer to it. All this goes to show that there is no rational, logical basis against Toto. The argument against Toto is based on emotional grounds and on the feelings of individuals. If individuals feel so strongly about gambling, my advice to them is not to gamble. But please do not deprive others of that little pleasure.

Madam Chan Choy Siong rose -

Mr Speaker: Madam Chan, do you rise to make some clarification?

Madam Chan Choy Siong: Only a few points. Sir.

Mr Speaker: I am afraid Standing Orders do not permit you to make points by way of reply. You can only explain some material part on which you have been misunderstood. You cannot introduce any new matter.

Madam Chan Choy Siong: (In Mandarin): Point of clarification, Sir,I think the Parliamentary Secretary has misunderstood me. I am not saying that Singapore must follow the steps of Communist countries in refraining from gambling. What I meant was that as Singapore is newly independent and is trying to build its youths into robust and strong citizens, we should not encourage them to gamble.

According to the Parliamentary Secretary, gambling was already in existence before the introduction of Toto. It means that the Government has not been able to control gambling activities in Singapore. Because of this, Government is trying -~

Mr Speaker: Madam Chan, you are developing an argument and not clarifying some material part of your speech on which you have been misunderstood.

Mr Tang See Chim: Sir, may I just explain, since the Member for Delta wants me to clarify on the question of a rugged society. In fact, a very practical way of contributing to a rugged society is to have a sports stadium where our youths can be trained into spirited, robust and rugged citizens. The way of doing it, as I have shown

Mr Speaker: Order. Mr Tang, if you have already shown it, there is no need to repeat it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That Parliament do now adjourn.

Adjourned accordingly at Eight minutes to Seven o'clock p.m. to Monday, 9th December, 1968.