In most of the States of Germany gaming was allowed, and the extent to which it was practiced at the German watering places is well known. The princes of the petty States often derived a large portion of their revenue from the tenants of their gaming establishments, whose exclusive privileges they guaranteed. Recently these Ger man gaming tables have all been closed. Monaco has now the chief public gaming tables of Europe.
In the United States, as in England, one who keeps a gambling house is indictable at common law for maintaining a nuisance; and one who wins another's money with false dice, or the like, is punishable as a common-law cheat. Legisla tion in our States against gambling has taken a course similar to that above described in Britain. The tendency has been toward greater precision in defining the offenses of gambling and of keep ing gambling houses and implements, toward more summary methods of dealing with the vio lators of these statutes, and toward severer pun ishment of violators. Such legislation is so di verse in matters of detail as to render even an outline of it impracticable. There has been diffi culty in arriving at a correct definition of gam bling. It cannot be said that a mere contest of skill or strength, however great may be the prize, is indictable at common law, for in England and the United States such contests have at all times been sanctioned by public policy and protected by the courts. Of course there may be contests not
objectionable upon this ground which may be prohibited for other reasons, as, e.g. cock-fighting, which is properly regarded as a cruel and wan ton sport. But it is 'gaining' for persons to stake money on chance. The chance must be the con trolling factor in the game. It is not enough that chance should enter into a contest to make it gambling, for it cannot be denied that there is a certain element of fortune in almost any con test or undertaking. But this does not make such contest gambling. All competitive examina tions are aftlVed somewhat by chance, yet no competitive examination is gambling. So in games of skill, as chess and billiards. In such games chance may have very little part. If so, playing these games, even for a prize or reward, is not gambling. It is otherwise when the game depends more largely on chance than on skill; so that it may be said that gambling as a penal • offense, under the statutes making it such, be defined as a staking on chance. Consult: Encyclopedia of the Laws of England (London, 1897.98) ; Bishop, On Statutory Grimes (3d ed., Chicago, 1901).