The Police and the Law
| Date | 01 April 1935 |
| Published date | 01 April 1935 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3500800202 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Police and the Law
What is a
Lottery?
THE
police have a notoriously difficult task in administering
the law as to gaming and lotteries.
The
new Act,
which came into force at the New Year, legalizing small private
lotteries
under
very stringent conditions and more effectually
banning all others, will not make the task any easier. An
interesting case on what is and what is not alottery came before
the Divisional Court (Lord Hewart C.}., Branson and du
Parcq
JJ.)
on 5th October, 1934, Director
of
Public Prosecutions
v. Phillips, 51 Times
Law
Reports 54.
The
case concerned note-
cases sold at
£1
each, each buyer being constituted an agent
to sell four further note-cases and to receive
lOS.
in respect
of the fourth such sale and
lOS.
on each further note-case, till
the chain was broken, up to
£20,000.
An ingenious scheme,
not unknown to police and others. One Oxford under-
graduate actually drew
£500
by way of commission.
It
was held
that
the scheme provided for
the
payment of com-
mission or reward of which
the
amount was regulated by
chance, and therefore the publication of the scheme was an
offence against Section 41 of the Lotteries Act, 1823.
The
Worcestershire magistrates had dismissed
the
proceedings,
but
had stated a case.
Lord
Hewart C.}. quoted from a
Scottish judgment, "
There
is no limit to the ingenuity of the
devisers of projects such as this, and there is accordingly no
end to the variety of schemes which may constitute alottery,"
and went on to say, "
What
the
Court
has to do is to dis-
engage, if it can,
the
reality of the transaction from the appear-
ance which, for good reason, it is made to assume." Alottery
is defined as a distribution of prizes or payments of any kind
by lot or chance, and here the
£1
was paid
not
for a note-
case,
but
for " the opportunity of setting a ball rolling over
133
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