Court Opinion

ID: 9791780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:17:40.804626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:38.434284
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent. The general rule stated by the majority opinion is far too broad and is outside the scope of the statute. It is said: “Prom the clear and definite wording of subdivision 4, it is apparent *198that the legislature intended to make the recording or registering of a bet a crime. There is no qualification stated in regard to such an act. It is quite immaterial whether or not the recorder is the bookmaker, or connected with the bookmaker with whom the bet is placed. Financial interest in the bet is not an element of the crime, and the provisions specifically include one who acts gratuitously.” Under that rule a person who placed a bet with a bookmaker and made a notation for his own convenience would be guilty of a felony. Likewise, his stenographer or bookkeeper who kept his records, would be guilty. Many other illustrations could be imagined. Baldly stated the rule makes unlawful any writing down of a bet, other than a bet made at the race track, at any time, any place, by any person. While the literal wording of subdivision 4 of section 337a of the Penal Code might justify such a rule, that subdivision must be read in the light of all the other subdivisions of the section and the evil at which the statute is aimed, namely, bookmaking. That such is the purpose of the section is evident from the first subdivision which declares unlawful “book-making.” In order to facilitate the. enforcement of that provision, subdivision 2 condemns the keeping or occupancy of any place having bookmaking paraphernalia therein. The essence of the matter still is, that it must have some connection with bookmaking. The paraphernalia must, as expressed in that subdivision, be kept for “recording or registering” bets, that is, bookmaking. To embrace more individuals and further aid in the enforcement of said section, subdivision 3 denounces persons who receive, hold or forward anything staked on a bet. Still it is dealing with the subject of bookmaking. Subdivision 5 extends to persons permitting other persons using their premises for the denounced purposes. Subdivision 6 proscribes the laying, offering or acceptance of bets. Hence it must be clear that before there may be a violation of subdivision 4, that is, the recording or registering of bets, there must be some connection between those acts and bookmaking. The registration or recording must be done for the purpose of noting a bet that is to be or has been made by the acceptor, recipient or taker of the bet or the one who is to place it with an acceptor. The one taking the bets is the bookmaker.
It is firmly established that the words “registering” and “recording” refer to and are connected with bookmaking— the taking of bets. It is said in Corpus Juris Secundum: *199“Bookmaking. A species of betting on races; the business of receiving and accepting bets or wagers on the result of races, usually after quoting odds to prospective betters and having them write out slips. The term imports some method of recording bets; and, while analogous to “pool selling,” strictly speaking, it is distinguished therefrom.” (38 C.J.S., Gaming, § 1, p. 54.) It is stated in Spies v. Rosenstock, 87 Md. 14 [39 A. 268, 269] : “that the business of bookmaking is betting on horse races, and is called bookmaking because the bets are booked, or a record kept of them in a book.” (See, also, People v. Langan, 196 N.Y. 260 [89 N.E. 921, 17 Ann.Cas. 1081, 25 L.RA.N.S. 479].)
It follows in the instant case that the trial court erred in refusing to give the instructions offered by defendant which would have submitted to the jury the issue of whether he was recording bets in the process of bookmaking. If his testimony is to be believed, he wrote the bets down—kept a record of them, but as he was not the acceptor, recipient or taker of bets, nor acting for anyone who was, and since he did not purport to place such bets with anyone, he was not, therefore, a bookmaker within any of the accepted definitions of that term. The ones to whom he sold his “system” placed their own bets with bookmakers and reported them to him. He merely compiled them into a record from which he evolved a “system” designed to enable them to increase their winnings. In my opinion the making of such a record does not constitute a violation of the statute denouncing bookmaking as a crime. For the foregoing reasons the judgment should be reversed.
Schauer, J., concurred.