Gaming Act, 1744
GAMING ACT 1744 | ||
CHAPTER XXXIV. | ||
An Act to explain, amend, and make more effectual the Laws in being to prevent excessive and deceitful Gaming; and to restrain and prevent the excessive increase of Horse Races. | ||
Preamble. | ||
After 24 June, 1745, no person shall keep a house or place for playing roly-poly, or other game with cards or dice; | ||
under penalties by 12 Geo. 2. c. 28. | ||
Whereas notwithstanding the many good and wholesome laws now in being for preventing excessive and deceitful gaming, many persons of ill fame and reputation, who have no visible means of subsistence, do keep houses, rooms, and other places for playing, and do permit persons therein to play at cards, dice, and other devices for large sums of money, by means whereof divers young and unwary persons, and others, are drawn in to lose the greatest part and sometimes all their substance; and it frequently happens they are thereby reduced to the utmost necessities, and betake themselves to the most wicked courses which end in their utter ruin: And whereas a certain pernicious game called roulet or roly-poly is daily practised, and the laws now in being have by experience been found ineffectual to put a stop to such pernicious practices: For remedy whereof, may it please your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that from and after the twenty-fourth day of June one thousand seven hundred and forty-five, no person or persons of what condition soever shall keep any house, room, or place for playing, or permit or suffer any person or persons whatsoever within any such house, room, or place to play at the said game of roulet otherwise roly-poly, or at any other game with cards or dice already prohibited by the laws of this realm; and in case any person or persons whatsoever shall keep any such house, room, or place for playing, or permit or suffer any person or persons as aforesaid to play at the said game of roulet otherwise roly-poly, or at any other game with cards or dice already prohibited by law, such person or persons so offending shall incur the pains and penalties, and be liable to such prosecution, as is directed in and by an Act made in the twelfth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled “An Act for the more effectual preventing excessive and deceitful gaming”. |