Agent liable for taking ready-money.
Although, as we have seen, a person doing business as a commission agent, and executing such commissions on credit is not within the Act, yet it seems that if he take money in advance he will be liable. Section 1 provides that taking money as the consideration for securing the payment by another person on any future contingency is an illegal purpose. The text of the statute is given ante, p. 165.
Partnerships.
We have ante p. 162 ventured the opinion that in a partnership formed to carry on an illegal gaming house no action could be maintained by one partner against the rest for an account of profits. The same, of course, applies to illegal betting houses, but subject to this, that in a betting partnership it will be very material to see whether the firm are really doing an illegal business at all; if the business be simply that of betting at a lawful club, or if they do an ordinary commission agency business, there is nothing illegal in this, as we have just explained under the title of “illegal betting.”
Income Tax.
Income Tax must be paid on profits even if the business be illegal. Partridge v. Mallandaine, 18 Q. B. D., 276.
Stewards’ authority in grand stand.
Considering how the law stands with regard to the liability of owners or occupiers of enclosures, for allowing them to be used for the purpose of betting with the public resorting thereto, it may be as well to notice that by law they have somewhat arbitrary powers in the matter of allowing persons to remain therein, even after they have paid their money. Thus in Wood v. Leadbitter,[[395]] Lord Eglinton was steward of the Doncaster races. Plaintiff was in the grand stand, having obtained admission by ticket issued by the authority of Lord Eglinton. Defendant by his lordship’s direction ordered plaintiff to leave the grand stand. It was assumed for the purposes of the case that plaintiff had in no way misconducted himself. It was held that the right to come and remain on the land of another could only be granted by deed; otherwise it was a mere license revocable at any time without returning the money paid for the ticket.
Advertising betting houses.
The next kind of offence created by the statute consists in advertising any house or place as being used for betting purposes or for the exhibition of betting lists.