By Raymond Viger
Lotteries and races have played a role in all our lives. Card games and bets between friends have been carried out since the dawn of civilization. But gambling in all its facets is much younger in Québec.
In 1829, the construction of the Welland Canal, which links Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, was financed by a lottery.
Canadian gambling laws were increasingly restrictive up until 1892. Apart from lotteries for charitable causes, with low-value objects as prizes, the Criminal Code completely banned all betting. This outlawing fostered illicit gambling, which developed into an important source of funds for criminal organizations.
Montréal became a hub for illegal gambling. Tight bonds were formed between the Montréal and New York mafias. Around 1950, Montréal was the third city in importance in all of North America for gambling and betting, after New York and Las Vegas.
Montréal was rife with bookmakers, or “bookies.” Illegal betting was controlled by criminal gangs that offered door-to-door service. They even took bets by phone from good customers, so they didn’t have to travel.
At one point there were even gaming machines in certain establishments. You didn’t need money to play them. You’d have “fun” trying to win. Supposedly, it was just a game for your own amusement. Except that when you’d finished playing, the credits you’d accumulated would be reimbursed to you in cash. It was a way to get around gambling laws while remaining publicly visible.
Obviously, criminal groups were behind this way of doing things.
Sports betting managed by criminal organizations opened the door to certain frauds. Many boxing matches and other sporting events were fixed so that criminals could pocket more money.
Pax and Criminals
In this era, Pacifique “Pax” Plante, a lawyer and associate of the police, estimated that there were about 250 places in Montréal to illegally bet. Unlike prostitution, these gambling dens were spread out throughout Montréal, to better serve their clientele; at work sites, close to factories, and even in residential neighborhoods!
You could gamble on any sport. People were a bit perplexed about some of the ambivalencies related to managing gambling. For example, why was it legal to bet at Blue Bonnets, a horse racing track, and not with a bookie?
Many argued that beyond the social perils of gambling (compulsive gambling, ruining working class families…), it profited organized crime. In 1945, journalists calculated that in certain downtown gambling joints, there could be $75,000 an hour bet, racking up enormous profits for Montréal’s underworld. That’s more than a million dollars an hour in today’s money!
Gambling also created a problem when police and political authorities became complicit.
Contrary to a house of prostitution, which could quickly change its location, the infrastructure of a gambling den was more cumbersome (telephones, chalkboards, telegraphs…). They couldn’t just pull up stakes and move at a moment’s notice. Pax Plante believed that this system therefor required the complicity of both police and politicians to continue to exist. Municipal authorities were accused of being lax, and even complicit.
Jean Drapeau’s Lottery
The idea of legalizing gambling to avoid criminal organizations from profiting was supported by Montréal mayor Camillien Houde and Québec premier Maurice Duplesis in the 1930s.
When Jean Drapeau was elected Montréal mayor in 1954, he promised to get rid of illegal gambling dens and police corruption. Even though the Criminal Code forbade it, in 1968 he created a “voluntary tax” to finance the deficit created by construction of the Metro and the 1967 world’s fair. This tax came in the form of a $150,000 lottery whose prize would be given out in gold ingots.
After only five months in operation and 19 drawings, the Supreme Court of Canada declared this lottery illegal in December of 1969. That very month, the Québec government created the Société d’exploitation des loteries et courses, the organization for the exploitation of lotteries and races. This organization was better known as Loto-Québec.
In 1972, Ottawa authorized Canada’s Olympic Lottery, which in 1976 became Lotto Canada. The federal government was competing with provincial governments for lottery money. That ended in 1979, when the feds withdrew from the lottery scene in return for compensation from the provinces.
In summary, the introduction of legal gambling in Québec was a chaotic process. Different institutions struggled to gain and regain control. They included the Catholic Church, community organizations, the City of Montréal, and both the provincial and federal governments. In the end, the province won out. The Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (The liquor, races and gaming commission), as well as Loto-Québec, had the last word.
This is a translated extract from the book Regard vers le futur, published by Éditions TNT.
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