Miscellaneous Gambling
N. Gambling in the Stock, Produce, and other Markets
When in any system of business the element of commerce and gambling are inextricably mixed, it is wise to adopt a line of expediency. The gambler should at least pay the same dues as the genuine investor. To ensure this no contract should be made enforceable or legal unless made upon Government stamped paper. The real buyer of £500 would not complain of having to pay 2s. or say 1s. per £100 to the National Exchequer; but the dealers in a £2,000,000 gambling contract would think twice before incurring a first definite outlay of £2000 or even £1000 cash down. A similar regulation would be desirable for the Produce, etc., Exchanges. In this way, by a perfectly equitable legal enactment, the wings of outrageous speculation would be clipped. An additional improvement would be an extension to all stocks and shares upon the lines of the principles of the Bank Act 1867, 30 Vict., c. 29. Prior to its passing, gambling in the shares of Banks had become a scandal, and a danger to credit. It provided for contracts setting forth the distinctive numbers of Bank shares, so as to prevent sales of shares of which the sellers were not possessed. In the produce markets similar requirements could be insisted on to bring about a corresponding result.
N. Industrial Gaming unconnected with Trade
Illegal Games.—The legislative remedy here should be to abolish the old interdict of certain special games, and to make all games of combined skill and chance illegal when played for money. But this would be a counsel of perfection which, in the present state of public opinion, would have no chance of being carried out. If, however, the words were added, “by players of unequal experience and skill,” it would give the Courts power to penalise the rooks in all such glaring cases as their victims should place in the hands of the authorities. Nor does there seem to be any reason why the old idea of restrictions as to amount should not be made good use of. There would be an enormous balance of advantage if it were declared illegal for a person to obtain during any one day a sum exceeding £10 by gaming, or for minors to gamble at all. The flocks of pigeons would to some extent be protected, however little the rook minority liked it, and society should benefit in every way. Such a regulation would sweep away the scandalous immunity enjoyed by rich men’s clubs; and, considering the widespread ruin for which they are responsible, and the present disgraceful unfairness of the law as between the poor and the wealthy, its application should work an incalculable improvement.
Playing with Gaming-Machines.—The Courts now seem disposed to construe the question of a modicum of skill more severely in this connection as children are so largely affected, and from what has been said above it may be hoped that the automatic machines are doomed. The above remarks, however, with regard to combined skill and chance and restriction of amount, apply here also to a certain extent, especially with regard to their use in clubs. The difficulties will be great of applying such regulations to gambling in private houses until the moral sense of the community becomes more keenly alive to the penalties of sorrow, ruin, and degradation which are the sad sequel of its neglect.
Lotteries and Sweepstakes.—The Lottery Acts now existing might have been fairly efficient if it were not for the difficulty, delay, and expense in having to obtain in certain cases the leave of the Attorney-General before proceedings can be taken. This especially applies in the matter of newspapers which benefit by advertising the lotteries. They are protected by 8 & 9 Vict. c. 74, the provision in which needs modification. There is still much, however, to be desired in the efficiency of administration, which cannot be fully attained until the farcical practice of allowing the law to be broken for charitable purposes is given up. Some years ago the Scotch authorities openly stated in reply to a remonstrance that in such cases no interference would be made. This lache has been to a large extent followed in England, and when the National Anti-Gambling League pointed out to the late Mr. Adrian Hope, the Secretary for the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, that the great raffles intended to be held at the Coronation Bazaar at the London Botanical Gardens were in contravention of the law, he merely declined to drop them, and said that one of the Judges had bought the first ticket for the chief lottery. Questions had to be asked in the House of Commons before they could be stopped, after the illegality had been acknowledged by Ministers.
To sum up under this head, the Post Office should have increased powers and inducements to destroy lottery matter, and to confiscate and appropriate for the benefit of the Rowland Hill Memorial Fund, in which the Post Office is so much interested, all lottery remittances, whether British or foreign; the question of the Attorney-General’s fiat for prosecutions should be reconsidered; and the police authorities should be stimulated to institute a regular and impartial campaign. How grossly the weapons of the law in regard to lotteries have been neglected may be illustrated by a statement made in a Treasury prosecution at Clerkenwell Police Court in June 1904, to the effect that one of the most important statutes, 4 Geo. IV. c. 60, was extremely difficult to find, not being printed in the ordinary book of statutes, and was not found in any magisterial text-book.
Press Competitions and Coupon Gambling.—So numerous are the devices of the baser organs of the press, and even of some which find it difficult to hold out against their competition, that no reform of the law is likely to be effective without some enactment making the offering of prizes illegal beyond a certain small amount; which compromise can hardly be avoided, because the best of these newspaper competitions offer undoubtedly some educational inducements. Those which are merely gambling vehicles should be suppressed. The bad position here again rests upon the foolish old dictum as to a modicum of skill covering a quantity of gambling. For instance, an unfortunate decision of the High Court in Hall v. Cox (1 Q.B. 1899), held that guesses at the numbers of the next Registrar-General’s return (although any competitor could purchase any quantity of the newspaper, filling in a different number for each one, thus making it an extensive gamble at will) did not constitute a lottery, because a certain amount of skill could be exercised by the study of previous returns. This led to numerous imitations, one of which was guessing at the future circulation of a paper, which had the additional journalistic merit of acting as a good advertisement. Amongst many, one poor and foolish artisan acknowledged that he had purchased considerable numbers of the newspaper, and its great increase in circulation by the device shows how many credulous persons were willing to gamble under the shelter of the law.
Two brief sections should meet the difficulties under this heading:—
1. Make all such competitions in which there is a material element of chance illegal.
2. Make it illegal for any publication to offer in any one edition a prize or prizes of the aggregate value of more than £5 for any purpose whatever.
Gambling in Clubs.—With regard to the law as to betting in clubs, allusion has already been made to Downes v. Johnson (2 Q.B. 1895) and a recent decision of Mr. Justice Bucknill which appears to follow upon the lines of that most unfortunate and harmful judgment. The alteration of the law needed here (none should be needed but for the interpretation put upon the words “person using” and “any other person” in section 30 of the Betting Act of 1853, as meaning persons in authority in the place, in the Powell v. Kempton Park case) is to so alter the section that the proprietors or committee of a club shall not escape responsibility for individuals, like the bookmakers in a race-course ring, carrying on betting businesses. Merely a clear definition of “persons using” as including such individuals is needed. This would bring all these betting establishments, some of which merely pretend to be social clubs, into the category of betting-houses, which are common gaming-houses; and if this were supplemented by a section as previously suggested, following the idea of the statutes of Anne and 18 George II., making the gain by any one member of a club of a greater sum than £10, on any game or chance whatever, upon any particular day, an offence entailing the same consequences, a heavy blow would be struck at gambling clubs of all kinds.
As to other gaming in clubs, chiefly card-playing, the reader who plods through the long technical judgment of Mr. Justice Hawkins in Jenks v. Turpin (13 Q.B.D.) will be chiefly impressed by the feeling that the police authorities systematically fail to make use of the existing laws, which is indeed the fact; but this is owing in great measure to difficulties in obtaining evidence, and the natural reluctance to order raids while the gamesters have the power to retaliate in case of failure. When elaborate preparations have been made at the cost of much labour, time, and expense, heavy bribery will often obtain the needful warning even from within the police force. The great clubs are seldom or never touched, and until a special department is formed at Scotland Yard under an able and determined chief, with absolute power of instant dismissal and punishment and liberal reward in dealing with his subordinates, our social life will continue to be poisoned with the evils of club gambling. If this were done and the old £10 limit named above once more revived, and greater power conferred to punish the players as well as the club committees and proprietors, club gambling would dwindle and the career of the professional gamester become less profitable and more precarious, while fortunes and incomes now thrown away would be applied to fruitful and honest purposes.
Petty Gambling.—In the matter of petty gambling what is needed is not so much amendments of the law (the enormous demand for playing-cards seems, indeed, to make the reimposition of a tax advisable) as its assiduous application by the authorities. It is now so diffused, unhappily owing in great part to the habit the nation has fallen into of looking upon gambling as a venial vice, if vice at all, that their task may well seem endless; and in this connection the most effective legislative enactment, for petty gambling is very widespread amongst juveniles, might well be some considered scheme compulsorily providing for teaching the young in primary and secondary schools how wrong it is and what evils it leads to. The materials exist for enabling this to be done in a very incisive manner, and by the time such systematic lessons have permeated the rising generation their elders may become as ashamed of indulging in betting and gambling as they may now be said to be of drunkenness.