Gambling in UK Law

In my view there was a clear contract to be inferred from the facts between the garage proprietor and the car owner that in consideration of the car owner leaving his car with the garage for repair the garage would carry out the repairs with reasonable expedition and care, and that they would be paid by the insurance company.

The question to be answered is whether the statute intends to deprive the contract of any legal effect with the result that it is unenforceable by either party, which depends purely on construction of the statute ( Okedina [17]). When the issue is whether the statute contains an implied prohibition, normal principles of statutory construction apply, albeit there are points of particular relevance.

He went on to find support for that conclusion in s336 of the Act, which includes an express power for the Commission to void an unfair bet and provides that where a bet is voided Since this only gives rise to a power to void a bet when it is unfair, that would be inconsistent with the interpretation of s33 which would void all bets if there was a breach of the LCCP.

I agree with the judge, essentially for the reasons he gave. Looking at the words used in s33, they are focussed on penalties addressed to one side (the operator) rather than applying to both parties. In that sense, it is very like the situation in Phoenix concerning insurance contracts, and I refer to the points on public policy made there by Kerr LJ at 273 at A-E.

In other words, reading s33 against the scheme of the Act as a whole, it would in my judgment be a very odd conclusion that this section was intended to render all gambling contracts void if the operator was in any breach of their licensing conditions. That conclusion does not sit easily with the power of the Commission in s336.

A submission made on Mr Gibson's behalf was that the protection of vulnerable customers was “the” priority of the Act and so this was said to support the argument about implying this effect in s33. However, while protection of the vulnerable clearly was one of the most important priorities in the Act, it was not the only one. Modernising the law was also important, as well as setting up a new regulatory scheme.

Mr Gibson's argument is that any breach of the LCCP has the effect of rendering the contract void. That would therefore allow a losing gambler to avoid paying his gambling debts irrespective of any vulnerability and irrespective of whether the breach of the licence conditions was of any relevance to the bet in question. Such a result would be entirely contrary to the policy of the Act which, so it seems to me, is that in general gambling debts are enforceable.