Opinion ID: 1834644
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: An Acceptable Premise

Text: This Court believes it should look to the popular meaning of lottery and bingo in order to determine whether the terms are one and the same or sufficiently similar to justify striking down § 97-33-51 as unconstitutional. Over 100 years ago, Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice O.W. Holmes Jr. similarly concluded that disposition of the issue  whether a so-called envelope game was a lottery  required comprehension of the  popular use of the word as shown by the dictionaries. Commonwealth v. Wright, 137 Mass. 250, 251-52 (1884) (emphasis added). In addition to dictionaries, experience should help to enlighten this Court. See O.W. HOLMES, THE COMMON LAW 1 (1881) (The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of time, the prevalent moral and political theories, institutions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-[citizens], have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which [citizens] should be governed. (emphasis added)). Accordingly, this Court has perused dictionaries and other sources ( e.g., experience) in search of the popular meaning of lottery and bingo. Both games unquestionably inhere the elements of chance, consideration, and prize; however, this premise alone does not lead to the conclusion that both are one and the same. Indeed, the game of poker inheres the elements of chance, consideration, and prize. Does this mean that poker is a lottery? The AG contends (as does the weight of authority) that any game which inheres the three elements is a lottery; therefore, the AG presumably would conclude that poker is a lottery. Indeed, under this broad definition, the stock market, life insurance, and other business enterprises involving the three elements could be deemed a lottery. Such logic seems no less absurd than that which equates a horse, dog, and cat with one another simply because each specie has four legs, two eyes, and one tail. The absurdity stems from the unexplained recognition that the term lottery should be deemed the generic umbrella which encompasses any game (or business enterprise?) inhering the three elements. This Court is unconvinced that the term lottery is a generic umbrella. The term gambling would seem to be the appropriate umbrella; this would be consistent with the popular meaning of all terms concerned as shown by the dictionaries and experience. Accord BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 611 (5th ed. 1979) (Gambling consists of a consideration, an element of chance, and a reward.); BARRON'S LAW DICTIONARY 278 (1984) (A lottery is a gambling scheme in which consideration is taken in return for the offering of a prize that will be given on the basis of chance.); WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 932 (Unabridged 1986) (same).