Every person sending, exhibiting or publishing, or causing the same to be sent, exhibited or published, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 7 of the principal Act with respect to offences under that section.
Tipsters’ business not prohibited.
What the latter statute prohibits people doing is, not advertising themselves as ready to give information or “tips” with respect to ordinary betting transactions, but only with respect to betting carried on in any office or place used for the purpose of illegal betting within the principal Act.
Thus in Cox v. Andrews[[397]] defendant issued advertisements in the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette and Hotel Courier that Centaur would, for half-a-crown in stamps, give information and advice with respect to the probable winners of races in the ensuing week. Centaur was the defendant’s regular correspondent with respect to horse-races and information relating thereto. There was no address given at which persons desiring such information should apply. Held, that the advertisement, contemplated in 37 Vict., c. 15, referred to bets made in any office, house or place as referred to in the principal Act, and not to advice with respect to ordinary betting; the Act was to be read with the principal Act, and the only kind of betting prohibited by the latter was that specified in section 1. Of course, this being the purport of the statute, all the cases cited above as to what is a “place,” etc., and particularly as to the kind of betting prohibited by the Statute 16 & 17 Vict., c. 119, apply to the construction of the supplementary as well as of the principal Act. |Betting clubs.| It is clear, therefore, that the ordinary betting clubs so long as they themselves are not within the Act, may advertise for members. |Agents.| So also the ordinary commission agent, who does business at these clubs, may advertise for clients.
Foreign houses.
Now that the bookmaker, having first been driven out of England has also been banished from Scotland, he seems from the advertisements in the papers to have betaken himself to Boulogne. Considering that any house he may set up there is not within the Act, it follows that these advertisements are perfectly legal.
Betting and Loans (Infants) Act.
We have now to notice an Act which has recently been passed to prohibit the sending of advertisements or invitations to bet to persons under age. The Betting and Loans (Infants) Act, 55 Vict., c. 4, s. 1, provides: (1) “If any one for the purpose of earning commission, reward, or other profit, sends or causes to be sent to a person whom he knows to be an infant, any circular, notice, advertisement, letters, telegram or other document which invites, or may reasonably be implied to invite, the person receiving it to make any bet or wager, or to enter into or take any share or interest in any betting or wagering transaction, or to apply to any person or at any place with a view to obtaining information or advice for the purpose of any bet or wager, or for information as to any race, fight, game, sport, or other contingency upon which betting or wagering is usually carried on, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour....” The penalties imposed are, if convicted on indictment, three months’ imprisonment, with or without hard labour, and a fine of £100; on summary conviction, one month and £20 fine.
Sub-section 2. “If any such circular, notice, advertisement, letter, telegram or other document, as in this section mentioned, names or refers to any one as a person to whom any payment may be made, or from whom information may be obtained for the purpose of or in relation to betting or wagering, the person so named or referred to shall be deemed to have sent, or caused to be sent, such document as aforesaid, unless he proves that he had not consented to be so named, and that he was not in any way party to, and was wholly ignorant of, the sending of such document.”
By section 3: If any such circular, &c., is sent “to any person at any university, college, school, or other place of education, and such person is an infant, the person sending it, or causing it to be sent, shall be deemed to have known that such person was an infant, unless he proves that he had reasonable grounds for believing such person to be of full age.”