Seay v Eastwood and Anor
[1976] 1 WLR 1117(Judgment by: Lord Simon of Glaisdale)
Seay
vEastwood and Another
Judges:
Lord Wilberforce
Lord Simon of GlaisdaleLord Kilbrandon
Lord Salmon
Lord Russell of Killowen
Judgment date: 1976 July 5, 6; 28
Judgment by:
Lord Simon of Glaisdale
My Lords, the first appellant is a licensed bookmaker carrying on business at a licensed betting office in Belfast, and the second appellant is his manager. They installed two gaming machines in the betting office, countenancing their operation and taking (by a suitable and lawful adjustment) a fixed 27 per cent. of the money inserted in the machines by the players. The ultimate issue in this appeal is whether, in relation to the machines. the appellants were carrying on "the business of receiving or negotiating bets" within the meaning of section 20 of the Betting and Lotteries Act (Northern Ireland) 1957.
The purpose of the Act was evidently to permit facilities for lawful betting, but with safeguards and restrictions. The safeguards were mainly provided by the licensing system and by powers of entry and investigation (section 18). The restrictions are contained in sections 12 to 17. I need not set them out. The impression they make on me is that betting offices, whatever the safeguards, were regarded austerely, to be tolerated as preferable to illegal street betting and bookies' runners, but hardly to be welcomed as intrinsically desirable social institutions. The argument on behalf of the appellants that gaming machines in Northern Ireland were lawful in licensed betting offices but everywhere else unlawful is irreconcilable with the general impression of the Act - that Parliament would certainly not have wished that betting offices could hold out uniquely (or indeed at all) the attraction of gaming machines. Any interpretation supported by such an argument is inherently suspect.
Moreover, the fiscal implications of the appellants' argument were truly fantastic: general betting duty is payable on any bet which is made with a bookmaker in Northern Ireland: section 16 (1) (a) of the Miscellaneous Transferred Excise Duties Act (Northern Ireland) 1972. No attempt was made to explain how this could work if every go at one of these machines constituted a bet with the bookmaker.
The language of the statute is about as close to ordinary speech as is to be expected in an Act of Parliament, and "bet" is not a term of art, but an ordinary English word. The appellants were convicted of an offence which involved that the resident magistrate at petty sessions did not consider that the appellants in relation to the gaming machines were carrying on the business of receiving or negotiating bets. On appeal the recorder made the following finding:
"Upon the facts I held that by any natural application or interpretation of the words contained in the ... Act ... the proprietor could not properly be described as making a bet ... Even if an individual user of the machine could be described as making a bet when he put his coin into the machine, which I doubt, I cannot hold that he could be said to be making it with a bookmaker."
That is really the beginning and the end of the case (cf. Cozens v. Brutus [1973] A.C. 854). I have quoted the learned recorder (a professional judge) in case it were considered that the linguistic register of the statute was not entirely that of ordinary speech. but has some legal overtone. For what it is worth, my own view coincides entirely with his. Moreover, I derive confidence from the fact that other judicial minds would apparently respond similarly to the meaning of the word "bet" in relation to a gaming machine. In Peers v. Caldwell [1916] 1 K.B. 371 Ridley J., at p. 378, considered the operation of such machines not to be "betting in the ordinary sense of that term." but to be an offence under other statutory wording not using that term. Avory J., at p. 379, concurring, considered that such other wording was used "in order, apparently, to cover cases as to which there might be a question whether they amounted to betting in the ordinary sense of that term."
Lush J., dissenting. nevertheless said, at p. 380:
"Here the magistrate has not found that the use of these machines amounted to a betting transaction, nor was there, I think, any evidence on which he could have so found."
I would therefore dismiss the appeal.