cards,
dice, balls, counters, tables, or other instruments of gaming be found
in the house, or about the person of any of those who shall be found
therein, such discovery shall be evidence against the establishment
until the contrary be made to appear. Those who shall appear as
witnesses, moreover, are protected from the consequences of having been
engaged in unlawful gaming.'(151)

(151) Chambers's Cyclopaedia, Art. Gambling.

The penalty of cheating at any game is liability to penal servitude for
three years--the delinquent being proceeded against as one who obtains
money under false pretences. Wagers and bets are not recoverable by law,
whether from the loser or from the wager-holder; and money paid for bets
may be recovered in an action 'for money received to the defendant's
use.' All betting houses are gaming houses within the meaning of
the Act, and the proprietors and managers of them are punishable
accordingly.

The existing law on the gaming of horse-racing is as follows. Bets on
horse-races are illegal; and therefore are not recoverable by law. In
order to prevent the nuisance which betting houses, disguised under
other names, occasioned, a law was passed in 1853, forbidding the
maintenance of any house, room, or other place, for betting; and by the
new Metropolitan Traffic Regulation Act, now in force, any three
persons found betting in the street may be fined five pounds each 'for
obstructing the thoroughfare'--a very odd reason, certainly, since it
is the _BETTING_ that we wish to prevent, as we will not permit it to be
carried on in any house, &c. These _LEGAL_ reasons are too often sadly
out of place. Any constable, however, may, without a warrant, arrest
anybody he may see in the act of betting in the street.

The laws relating to horse-racing have undergone curious revisions and
interpretations. 'The law of George II.'s reign, declaring horse-racing
to be good, as tending to promote the breed of fine horses, exempted
horse-races from the list of unlawful games, provided that the sum
of money run for or the value of the prize should be fifty pounds and
upwards, that certain weights only might be used, and that no owner
should run more than one horse for the same prize, under pain of
forfeiting all horses except the first. Newmarket, and Black Hambledon
in Yorkshire, are the only places licensed for races in this Act, which,
however, was also construed to legalize any race at any place whatever,