TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1912 (6) TMI 1
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.... is whether the premises in which the defendant carried on this cotton-gambling is "a common gaming house" within the definition given in the Act. That definition is "The words 'common gaming house' shall be taken to mean any house, room or place in which cards, dice, tables or other instruments of gaming are kept or used for the profit or gain of the person owning or keeping such house, room or place, whether by way of charge for the use of the instruments of gaming, or of the house, room or place or otherwise" (Section 3, Act IV of 1866). By Act III (B.C.) of 1897 the following was added to the definition of "common gaming house" in Section 3 of the Calcutta Police Act, 1866: "or in which rain-gambling, that is to say, wagering on the occurrence or non-occurrence of rain, is carried on for the profit or gain of any such person as aforesaid." 5. "After the said definition was inserted: "'gaming' shall include rain-gambling; 'instruments of gaming shall include books or registers in which rain-gambling wagers are entered, all other documents containing evidence of such wagers, and anything used as a means of rain-gambling." Clearly, therefore, by this enactme....
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....gaming if a complete apparatus is used for the purpose, otherwise it is not. Here we are in entire agreement with him, and we are not prepared to hold that the Bombay case so far as it decided that a special apparatus consisting of a gutter and (a rain gauge used for the purpose of gambling), and for no other purpose is not an instrument of gaming was rightly decided. 10. But we cannot agree that the difference between gaming and betting depends on the event on which the bet is made. Betting must always be on an uncertain event, and betting in itself, apart from stakes being laid on a particular game or instrument of gaming in a public place, is not penal. Playing cards for money, whatever the game, is not penal unless the game is played in a public place. Playing with cards, dice or money is penal, if done in a public place, whether it is ostensibly for money or not. It may be that horse racing if it degenerates into nothing but an occasion for betting becomes gaming, but that is because the race-horses may as Stephen J. points out then probably become instruments of gaming. We do not say that they do, but the criminality if any lies not in beating but in placing stakes publicl....
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....exactly to define or adequately to distinguish these terms of allied meaning. The word 'game' is applicable to most pastimes and many sports irrespective of their lawful or unlawful character. 'Gaming' is now always associated with the staking of money or money's worth on the result of a game of pure chance or mixed skill and chance, and 'gambling' has the same meaning with a suggestion that the stakes are excessive or the practice otherwise reprehensible, while wager and wagering are applied to money hazarded on any contingency in which the person wagering has no interest at risk other than the amount at stake. Betting is usually restricted to, wagers on events connected with sports or games, and 'lottery' applies to speculation to obtain prices by lot or chance." 16. We mention this last because reference has been made at the bar to the case of Anonymous Reference by the Recorder of Rangoon (1869) 12 W.R. Cr. 34 dated 28th July 1869, upon Act III of 1867, an Act which contained similar provisions to Act IV of 1866. There it was held that lottery tickets by reference to which it is to, be decided whether the holder or purchaser wins the whole....
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....sale cheating goes on in this respect, the winning number being surreptitiously changed if too much money has been laid on it. 18. How far these allegations are true we are unable to say, but the allegations as well as the article in which they are exhibited are wholly irrelevant for the purposes of this case. 19. What is charged in the newspaper is cheating and there is no charge of cheating before us, and it has been held on the highest authority in England and India, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Ram Lall Thakoorseydas v. Soojunmull Dhanumall (1848) 4 I.A. 339 that the question, whether frauds might be committed or attempted from the desire of gain in such speculations was irrelevant if the wager in question is not in itself illegal and that it was for the Legislative Council in Calcutta to consider how far it may be conducive to the benefit, of our Indian Empire to legislate on English line against such wagers. 20. The judgment was pronounced by Lord Campbell in February 1.848, and appears to have been speedily followed by the enactment of Act XXI of 1848, entitled an Act for avoiding wagers, which was passed fry the Governor-General in Cou....