33 Ind. App. 448 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1903
The only question in this case is as to the sufficiency of the complaint. It is alleged in the complaint that the L. A. Kinsey Company, a corporation, and one William Lancaster owned and operated at the town, of Converse, Indiana, what is commonly known and called a “bucket-shop,” being a place where wheat, corn, and pork, and other provisions and grain were bought and sold on margins; that said appellants permitted persons to buy and sell such wheat, corn, and provisions upon options, the profits or losses to be determined at the settling time by the rise or fall of the prices of such commodities in the Chicago
It is provided'by §6676 Burns 1901 that “if any person by betting on any game, or betting on the hands or sides of such as play at any game, shall lose to anyone any money, or valuable thing, and shall pay or deliver the same, or any part thereof, the person so losing, and paying, or delivering the same, may, within six months next following, recover the money or other valuable thing so lost and paid or delivered, or any part thereof, with costs of suit, by action founded on this act, to be prosecuted in any court having jurisdiction thereof.” It is the contention of the appellant that this statute does not cover and embrace such losses as are described in appellee’s complaint; in other words, that money lost in bucket-shop deals can not be recovered under the Indiana statute.
The exact question presented in this appeal was passed upon by Baker, J., in the ease of Boyce v. O’Dell Commission Co., 109 Fed. 758, where it was said: “A bucket-shop does not, of itself, constitute a game any more than a pack of cards or box of dice constitutes a game. The. game consists in playing with or using the cards or dice to determine a bet or wager. To determine whether or not a bucket-shop is used as a means or system of playing a game, we must look to the complaint, and ascertain what is alleged
“It is obvious that the acts of 1824, 1838, and 1852 were not. intended by the lawmakers to embrace bets or wagers on the future market price of commodities, for the reason.
Mitchell, J., in the case of Sondheim v. Gilbert, 117 Ind. 71, 5 L. R. A. 432, 10 Am. St. 23, said: “However much dealing in options may resemble gambling or betting, and' demoralizing and pernicious as it may be, it can not, with any degree of propriety, be said to be winning or losing money by playing at or betting upon any game, within the meaning of the statute.”
We think these cases settle the question presented by this appeal. Dealing in options upon any kind of property is not a game. A bucket-shop is not a mechanical device. It is not like a roulette table, dice, a spindle, or a pack of cards. In a transaction controlled by the future price of grain, stocks, or provisions, it will be presumed that neither party has control of the market price, and that the price will be changed, if changed at all, through the operation of the natural law of supply and demand.
The courts of Ohio, Illinois, and Tennessee have held that money lost in bucket-shop deals may be recovered, but the statutes of those states are broad enough to cover such transactions, and do not limit the recovery to money lost on a “game.”
The judgment is reversed.