GAMBLING 



341 5 



GAME 



Turkish govt., 1909-10. He com- 

 manded the 6th cruiser squadron, 

 1910-14, and during the Great 

 War the 4th battle squadron. In 

 1917 he retired with the rank of 

 admiral. 



Gambling. Staking money or 

 other valuable commodity upon 

 the as yet undecided issue of an 

 event, particularly of a sporting 

 event or of a game. 



The practice is of undiscoverable 

 antiquity, but has always been dis- 

 countenanced by the statute law 

 of civilized communities. Among 

 the Greeks and Romans there 

 were two principal games of chance, 

 both played with dice. Tesserae 

 were cubes, the faces marked I to 

 VI as in modern dice, the points 

 on the opposite faces totalling 7 ; 

 the game was played with 3 tes- 

 serae shaken and thrown from a 

 turret-shaped box upon the board ; 

 the highest throw, called Venus, 

 was of 3 sixes, the lowest, or dog's 

 throw, of 3 aces. Tali, or knuckle- 

 bones, were oblongs, with two of 

 the long sides broader than the 

 others, and numbered 3 and 4, the 

 narrower pair marked 1 and 6, and 

 rounded ends unmarked. 



Four tali were used, the highest 

 throw being when all showed diffe- 

 rent numbers, the lowest when all 

 came out the same. Odd and even, 

 heads and tails, and mora, and an 

 early form of backgammon were 

 other games of chance in classical 

 times. Games of chance were pro- 

 hibited by law except during the 

 Saturnalia in December, but 

 gambling was rife in Rome. 



According to Tacitus, the ancient 

 Germans were bewitched with the 

 spirit of play to an exorbitant 

 degree. Their modern descendants 

 were not innocent of the same vice, 

 Wiesbaden, Homburg, and Baden- 

 Baden being notorious gaming cen- 

 tres until their gambling-houses, 

 with all the others in Germany, 

 were abolished in 1872. 



Cards were used for gambling 

 there as they had been in England, 

 as they were in Belgium, at Spa, 

 and Ostend, upon the suppression 

 of the German houses, until 

 suppressed there too in 1902, and 

 as they still are in France at 

 such resorts as Aix-les- Bains, 

 Trouville, and Biarritz, and espe- 

 cially in the principality of 

 Monaco, the Mediterranean para- 

 dise in which roulette, trente-et- 

 quarante, and rouge-et-noir are 

 the triple-headed serpent. Sys- 

 tems innumerable have been de- 

 vised by gamblers to render win- 

 ning certain at all the games of 

 chance, but never one of which 

 the fallibility cannot be proved 

 mathematically, or which cannot 

 be defeated by the advantages 



reserved by the bank as in fixing 

 the maximum which it will pay on 

 any chance and in retaining the 

 re fait of 31 at trente-et-quarante, 

 and in the zero in roulette. 



In England statute law against 

 gambling originated in desire to 

 protect the manlier sports of 

 archery and the like from being 

 abandoned in favour of idle 

 games, but even Henry VIII, who 

 was responsible for one of the 

 earliest of these moral enactments, 

 was not proof against the seduc- 

 tion of the dice. That reformed 

 gambler, Theophilus Lucas, who 

 wrote Memoirs of Gamesters as a 

 warning to future generations, re- 

 cords that Sir Miles Partridge once 

 played at dice with King Henry 

 for the four largest bells in Lon- 

 don, and won them. In the reign 

 of Charles II the fashionable vice 

 became a scandal. One statute 

 of this period enacted that if any 

 person by playing or betting lost 

 more than 100 at one time he 

 was not compelled to pay the 

 sum, and the winner 'forfeited 

 treble the amount. 



The respect shown to the statute 

 may be gauged by the fact that 

 the duchess of Mazarin won 1,400 

 guineas in one night from Nell 

 Gwynn at basset, and more than 

 8,000 from the duchess of Ports- 

 mouth, and derived no little finan- 

 cial advantage from doubtful play 

 with the merry monarch. Even 

 the more austere William III is 

 said to have lost 2,500 to the pro- 

 fessional gamester Richard Bour- 

 chier, who next proceeded to win 

 15,000 from the Elector of Ba- 

 varia, a sum immediately doubled 

 by tossing double or quits. 



As Blackstone insists, gambling 

 " taken in any light is an offence of 

 the most alarming nature ; tending 

 by necessary consequence to pro- 

 mote public idleness, theft, and de- 

 bauchery among those of the lower 

 class ; and, among persons of a 

 superior rank, it has frequently 

 been attended with the sudden 

 ruin and desolation of ancient and 

 opulent families, an abandoned 

 prostitution of every principle of 

 honour and virtue, and too often 

 has ended in self-murder." 



The gaming laws governing the 

 practice in Great Britain, and the 

 legally prohibited games, ace of 

 hearts, basset, dice (except back- 

 gammon), faro, hazard, lotteries 

 (except those of art unions), and 

 roulette, are dealt with under those 

 separate headings. 



The economic nature of gam- 

 bling is that as the result of a 

 bet property is transferred from 

 one to anothe-r upon the occurrence 

 of an event which, to the two parties 

 to the bet, was a matter of com- 



plete chance, or as nearly so as 

 their adjustment of condition 

 could make it. Chance is the prin- 

 ciple upon which the transaction is 

 founded, in the mind at least of one 

 of the parties. Chance enters into 

 every human transaction, but 

 the reason is always exercised to 

 reduce its possible effect to the 

 minimum. Into gambling, on the 

 contrary, reason is only introduced 

 so to adjust the element of chance as 

 to make it the determining principle 

 of the transfer, and the wrongful- 

 ness of the practice lies not in the 

 indulgence in an intrinsically'inno- 

 cent act, but in the surrender to 

 chance of acts which ought to be 

 controlled by reason alone. 



Bibliography. Memoirs of the 

 Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Ad- 

 ventures of the Most Famous 

 Gamesters . . . , Theophilus Lucas, 

 1714 ; The History of Gambling in 

 England, John Ashton, 1898 ; The 

 Ethics of Gambling, W. D. Mac- 

 kenzie, new ed., 1911 ; The Law of 

 Gambling, W. Coldridge and C. V. 

 Hawksford, 2nd ed. 1913. 



Gamboge. Gum resin of a 

 rich brownish yellow tint, ob- 

 tained from Garcinia Hanburii, a 

 tree which grows in Siam, near the 

 S. W. coast of Cambodia, whence 

 the drug takes its name. It is im- 

 ported in the form of sticks or 

 cylinders, 1 in. to 2 \ ins. in diameter 

 and 4 ins. to 8 ins. in length, the 

 shape being caused by the liquid 

 juice of the tree being collected in 

 lengths of bamboo cane. Gamboge 

 is used in medicine as a drastic 

 purgative, the dose being 1 gr. to 

 4 grs. Owing to its brilliant 

 colour, gamboge is employed in 

 water-colour painting. 



Garni rinus. Legendary king of 

 Flanders, to whom Is ascribed the 

 invention of beer. In Germanic 

 countries his name is sometimes 

 used as a sign for beer halls and 

 cellars, and the king is represented 

 sitting across a barrel, holding in 

 his hand a tankard of foaming beer. 



Game. Name given to certain 

 uridomesticated animals taken in 

 field-sports by coursing or shooting, 

 and to their' flesh when used for 

 food. Game, as defined by the 

 Night Poaching Act, includes hares, 

 pheasants, partridges, black game, 

 red grouse and bustard. Some of 

 these are high in flavour, and it is 

 the custom to hang them in a cool 

 place for several days before eating, 

 that the flesh may become tender 

 or short. Gamekeepers are servants 

 employed by landowners to rear 

 and preserve game, prevent poach- 

 ing, and check the depredations of 

 vermin and birds of prey. They are 

 subject to the duty on male ser- 

 vants, and their licence only extends 

 to lands on which their employer has 

 a right to kill game. See Game Laws. 



