502 



APPENDIX. 



What shaU 

 he sufficient 

 evidence that 

 a house is a 

 common 

 gaminghouse. 



Power of 

 justices may 

 be exercised 

 under 

 warrant. ' 



in all places where houses, alleys, plays, or places of dicing, 

 carding or gaming shall be suspected to be had, kept and 

 maintained, shall be repealed, and also so much of the said act 

 as makes it lawful for every master to license his or their 

 servants, and for every nobleman and other having manors, 

 lands, tenements, or other yearly profits for term of life, in his 

 own right or in his wife's right, to the yearly value of a 

 hundred pounds, or above, to command, appoint or license, by 

 his or their discretion, his or their servants or family of his or 

 their house or houses to play at cards, dice or tables, or any 

 unlawful game, as therein more fully set forth, shall be 

 repealed : and that no such commandment, appointment or 

 licence shall avail any person to exempt him from the danger 

 or penalty of playing at any unlawful game or in any common 

 gaming house. 



2. And whereas doubts have arisen whether certain houses, 

 alleged or reputed to be opened for the use of the subscribers 

 only, or not open to all persons desirous of using the same, are 

 to be deemed common gaming houses ; be it declared and 

 enacted, That, in default of other evidence proving any house 

 or place to be a common gaming house, it shall be sufficient, in 

 support of the allegation in any indictment or information that 

 any hovise or place is a common gaming house, to prove that 

 such house or place is kept or used for playing therein at any 

 unlawful game, and that a bank is kept there by one or more of 

 the players exclusively of the others, or that the chances of any 

 game played therein are not alike favourable to all the players, 

 including among the players the banker or other person by 

 whom the game is managed, or against whom the other players 

 stake, play or bet ; and every such house or place shall be 

 deemed a common gaming house, such as is contrary to law 

 and forbidden to be kept by the said Act of King Henry the 

 Eighth, and by all other Acts containing any provision against 

 unlawful games or gaming houses. 



3. In every case (except within the metropolitan police 

 district) in which the justices of peace in every shire, and 

 mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs and other head officers within every 

 city, town and borough within this realm, now have by law 

 authority to enter into any house, room or place, where unlaw- 

 ful games shall be suspected to be hold en, it shall be lawful for any 

 justice of the peace, upon complaint made before him on oath 

 that there is reason to suspect any house, room or place to be 

 kept or used as a common gaming house, to give authority, by 

 a special warrant under his hand, when in his discretion he shall 

 think fit, to any constable, to enter, with such assistance as 

 may be found necessary, into such house, room or place, in like 

 manner as might have been done by such justices, mayors, 

 sheriffs, bailiffs or other head officers, and, if necessary, to use 



