Court Opinion

ID: 9445263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:24:03.549992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:11.283851
License: Public Domain

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In its attempted delicate distinction which carefully removes appellant from the reach of the tax and, in effect, emasculates the statute, the majority ignores the realities of the case.
Admittedly appellant receives the ticket identifying the particular wager from which, according to the testimony, after the winning number has “come out” the bank determines whether it is obligated *186to pay that particular ticket. What more is needed to “receive a wager” does not appear from the court’s decision. Further, instead of appellant being an inconsequential messenger, he is a direct representative of the “banker”, a man from headquarters. Appellant stems directly from the “banker” to the “writers”, an indispensable link in the day to day functioning of this vicious operation. With his class now exonerated everyone connected with “numbers” anywhere, if put to it, should have little difficulty avoiding the impact of Section 3290 by simply asserting that he is merely a “pick-up” man.
From the facts, appellant is a necessary and important participant in the ugly corroding racket involved. Not only is he subject to that part of the law imposing liability on those persons “ ‘engaged in receiving wagers’ ”, Sagonias v. United States, 5 Cir., 1955, 223 F.2d 146, but he also comes directly under it as one “engaged in the business of accepting wagers”. That is the clear holding of Daley v. United States, 1 Cir., 1956, 231 F.2d 123, 128. There, the court specifically affirmed that portion of the trial judge’s charge which stated that,
“ * * * to be ‘engaged in the business of conducting a wagering pool or a lottery, a person does not have to personally receive money or a number pool or lottery bet from a bettor; if he is an active participant knowingly in an essential part of the management structure in the processing of such wagering pool or lottery bets in an existing wagering or lottery business, whether top manager, agent solicitor on the street, or an employee or associate of a communications center or central bookkeeping agency of an organization which was engaged in accepting wagers, or conducting a wagering pool or a lottery, he is engaged in such business.’ ”
There are no reported decisions in accord with the majority'view. I would affirm the judgment of the district court.