WAGER. In a wager or bet, two parties stake money against each other on the happening or failure of a certain event: A is to pay a certain sum to IS if the event happen one way; and B is to pay a certain sum to A if the event happen the other way. Thus, if John bet Thomas three to one (in pounds) that he will win the game, and it turn out that he does win the game, he (John) is to receive one pound from Thomas; but if John should not win the game, Thomas is to receive three pounds from John.
The principle of a wager exists in a great multitude of transactions which do not bear the name : in fact., every commercial affair in which money is risked upon a possibility of receiving more than legal interest in consideration of that risk, is a wager. Thus, if John lend Thomas 100/. to engage in an adventure, knowing that he can receive nothing if it fail, and In consideration of 1501. if it succeed, it is a wager of the following kind. If the money be out a year, and John could safely make five per cent. of it, he risks 1051. in case of loss, and is to receive 451. In that of gain ; so that In fact it Is as if John bet Thomas 105 to 45, that the speculation would succeed. For if we were to suppose that John lends Thomas 1001. for a year at five per cent., on good security, and makes the above wager besides, they will be found to be in exactly the position originally described.
A fire Insurance is a simple wager between the office and the party; and a life assurance is a collection of wagers. There is something of the principle of a wager in every transaction in which the results of a future event aro to bring gain or loss. And in every game of chance, we have a wager or a collection of wagers, whenever money is staked.
Much has been written and said upon the morality of wagers, in which the word is understood in its common acceptation, namely, that there is nothing but a stake of money, made in a manner which has no reference to commercial advantage, and no tendency to promote the physical well-being of the community. It is however exceedingly difficult to draw the line between the pure wager, which is nothing else, and the commercial wager. The loan of John to Thomas, above described, may be a useful transaction : it may give the country a new mine or a new market. But it does not follow that the pure wager, or
a case which is generally so considered, may not be also usefuL It were to be wished that, in considering this matter, the right and wrong of the transaction Reel( should be always carefully separated from the tendency of the collateral circumstances connected with R. One or two instances will explain our meaning.
A horse-racer and a stock-jobber are two of the characters which are set down In public opinion as mere gamblers, and so are a billiard player and a hazard-player. All four are considered to belong to the same class. Now it Is true that the occupations of all but the second are generally connected with much that is objectionable, and which, though not necessarily attached to their mode of life, are so frequently consequent upon it, that the strength of the tendency is sufficient to justify the warning which writers upon morals give against the pursuit of gambling. And among all the four descriptions of characters are to be found the full proportion of those whose society is not coveted by a very respectable minority of the nation. But though many a man born to better things has been ruined by each of the four pursuits, it would be unjust to say that there Is no distinction between them. We doubt whether billiards or hazard ever were the cause of any benefit to society; the wager which ends in a wager seems to be the proper description of both. But horse-racing has at least improved the breed of horses ; and, as business is now transacted, it is due to the stock jobber that funded property can be turned into money, or rice erred, at any moment of the year. We do not mean to say that the money which changes hands on the course might not be much more effectively employed in the Improvement of horses, or that It might not be prise Usable to effect modes of rapidly realising or investing without the concomitant of gambling. All we wish to illustrate is the fact, that innumerable classes of wagers are mixed up with the transactions of society, from those which are essential to its existence, through those which are of mixed harm and good, up to those which are but dubious in their very best cases.