Receiving Money under the Betting Act, 1853
| Published date | 01 October 1948 |
| Date | 01 October 1948 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201834801200411 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Receiving Money under The Betting
Act, 1853.
SECTION 1 of
the
Betting Act, 1853, is, as Lord
Hewart
remarked in Shuttleworth v. Leeds Greyhound Assn.
(1933, 1
K.B.
400), "somewhat involved
by
reason of
the
anxiety of
the
draftsman
to
guard against evasions of
it".
Despite
the
wide scope of
the
section
many
attempts
have
been made
to
evade its provisions,
but
the
High Court
has shown a readiness to interpret
the
provisions of
the
section so widely
that
the
majority of such
attempts
have
failed. These decisions, however, have to be applied
with
care,
and
it
is
the
purpose of this article to examine their
application to facts which are
not
uncommonly
put
for-
ward
by
the
Police as justifying aconviction under s. 1
of
the
above Act,
but
which do
not
at
first sight appear
to
fall within
the
scope of
the
section.
Shorn of
the
words which are unnecessary for
the
present purpose, s. 1 provides
that
"
....
no office shall
be used for
the
purpose of
the
owner, occupier or keeper
thereof, or
any
person using
the
same . . . . betting with
persons resorting
thereto;
or for
the
purpose of
any
money
. . . . being received
by
or on behalf of such owner,
occupier, or person as aforesaid
....
as
the
consideration
for
any
undertaking.
. . . to
pay
....
any
money or
valuable thing on
any
event or contingency of or relating
to
any
horse or
other
race . . .
."
The
type
of case to be considered is
that
in which a
prosecution is launched under
the
second half of
the
above
section where
the
evidence relied on
by
the
prosecution
is of
the
nature
exemplified in a case recently heard in a
metropolitan court. Here
the
Police
kept
observation on
astreet bookmaker over a period of three days during
which period he was seen to
attend
regularly
at
his
'pitch'
in
the
street
and
to
accept slips and money from men who
came up
to
him
there;
these men appeared to be individual
backers
and
not
his
agents;
each
day
after
he
had
collected
his
bets
he returned
to
his office, from which he
ran
a
~o
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