Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/76

66  1em  GAMES, GAMING. Looking here at these in their legal aspects, it will be seen that from very early times the law of England has attempted to exercise some control over the sports and pastimes of the people—particularly those involving an element of gambling. Certain games were either prohibited altogether, or reserved for people of some position in society. The Act 33 Henry VIII. c. 9, increasing the severity of still older enactments, deals with the whole subject in great detail, and it is interesting to notice that the reason assigned for prohibiting unlawful games was that they interfered with other exercises more useful to the state. The Act is entitled a “Bill for the maintaining artillery and the debarring unlawful games ;” and it recites that, since the last statutes, “ crafty persons have 1nvented many and sundry new and crafty games and plays, as loggetting in the ﬁelds, slide-thrift, otherwise called shove-groat, as well within the city of London as elsewhere in many other and divers parts of this realm, keeping houses, plays, and alleys for the maintenance thereof, by reason whereof archery is sore decayed, and daily is like to be more and more minlshed, and divers bowyers and ﬂetehers, for lack of work, gone and inhabit themselves in Scotland and other places out of this realm, there working and teaching their science, to the pursuance of the same, to the great comfort of estrangers and detriment of this realm.” Accordingly penalties are declared against all persons keeping houses for unlawful games, and all persons resorting thereto. It is further provided that “no manner of artiﬁcer or craftsman of any handicraft or occupation, husbandman, apprentice labourer, servant at husbandry, journeyman or servant of artiﬁcer, mariners, ﬁshermen, watermen, or any servmg man, shall play at the tables, tennis, dice, cards, bowls, clash, coyting, loggettmgaor any other unlawful game out of Christmas under the pam of xxs. to be forfeit for every tune 3 and in Christmas to play at any of the said games in their masters’ houses or in their masters’ presence; and also that no manner of person shall at any time play at any bowl or bowls in open places out of his garden or orchart ” (3 16). The social evils of gambling (impoverishment, crime, neglect of divine service) are incidentally alluded to in the preamble, but only in connexion with the mam purpose of the statute—the maintenance of archery. Blackstone, commenting on this and subsequent statutes, declares that “ the principal ground of modern complaint is the gambling in high life” (vol. iv. e. 13), and he cites the various statutes which, 11p to his time, had been passed against this pernicious vice. Some of these went so far as to make the mere winning or losing of money at play a criminal offence. By the Act 18 Geo. II. c. 34 (repealed by 8 and 9 'Vict. c. 109), if any man be convicted upon information or indictment of winning or losing at play or by betting at any one time £10 or £120 within 24 hours, he shall be fined ﬁve times the sum for the beneﬁt of the poor of the parish. And the evil of gambling, 216., betting or wagering, is the ostensible object against which the later statutes on gaming are directed. A bet or wager was, however, at common law as valid as any other kind of contract, and the distinction between bets depending on gaming and bets depending on other contingencies was long retained, and has, in fact, not yet entirely disappeared. Besides the Act last mentioned, the Acts 9 Anne c. 14, 2 Geo. II. c. 28, and 13 Geo. II. c. 34 prohibited particular games. The modern statutes are the following—8 and 9 Vict. c. 109, 16 and 17 Vict. c. 119, and 17 and 18 Vict. c. 38. The 8 and 9 Vict. c. 109 (Act to amend the law relating to games and wagers) repeals, inter (did, so much of the old law of Henry VIII. as makes it unlawful to play at any mere games of skill. And it provides that, to prove any house to be a common gaming-house, it “ shall be sufﬁcient to show that it is kept or used for playing therein at any unlawful game, and that a bank is kept there by one or more of the players exclusively of the others, or that the chances of any game played therein are not alike favourable to all the players, including among the players the banker or other person by whom the game is managed, or against whom the other players stake, play, or bet.” Gambling, it will be noticed, is still in this deﬁnition connected with some kind of game; the later Act, 16 and 17 Vict c. 119 (for the suppression of betting-houses), enacts that any house used for the purpose of “ betting with persons resort- ing thereto ” shall be deemed to be a common gaming- house. To return to the former Act, it provides that proof that the gaming was for money shall not be required, and that the presence of cards, dice, and other instruments of gaming shall be prz'ma facie evidence that the house was used as a common gaming—house. The keeping of houses for the game of billiards is to be authorized under licence from the justices to be granted at the general licensing sessions, and the conditions are in general the same as to time of opening, &c., as those of the victuallers’ licences. Any persons winning money by cheating at any game or wager shall be deemed guilty of obtaining money by false pretences. The 16 and 17 Vict. c. 119, besides bringing betting-houses within the statutory deﬁnition of gaming-houses, makes it a speciﬁc offence to publish advertisements, handbills, placards, &c., showing that any house is kept or opened for the purpose of betting. With reference to the deﬁnition of betting—house in this statute, “a place opened, kept, or used for the purpose of the owner, occupier, (in, thereof, betting with persons resorting thereto,” it may be mentioned that it was avowedly framed for the purpose of hitting houses open to all and sundry, as distinguished from large but legally private betting-clubs like Tattersall’s. The reason for this distinction, of course, is that the former are frequented mainly by a poorer class of persons, who cannot afford the luxury of gambling, and will be tempted by their losses to defraud their employers. The Act of 17 and 18 Vict. gives additional facilities for enforcing the preceding Acts, and increases the severity of the penalties. The keeper of a gaming—house may be ﬁned up to £50 and costs, and on default of payment may be sent to gaol for twelve