BETTING AND GAMBLING. - A bet is a bilateral aleatory contract, by which two persons, disagreeing about the truth or the outcome of a matter, promise each other a prize (sum, stake) in favor of the one for whom the truth or the event will turn out.
It is morally lawful and produces an obligation in conscience when certain conditions are met. The first is bilaterality: that is, it must bind both parties; if it weighs only on one, it will rather be a conventional penalty. The second condition is aleatoriness (both parties expose themselves to equal risk, being ignorant of the truth of the matter or of the event). If one party knows it, the parity ceases; in the case of a game, however, a proportion of equality or near-equality of skill between the contenders is required. Nevertheless, if one party, with full knowledge of the matter, nonetheless accepts the game or its continuation to his own detriment, it is not improbable that the obligation persists, since nothing prevents one from consenting to the other's victory out of pure liberality (for example, that parents do this with their children). There is required furthermore: the moral lawfulness of the matter bet upon. If the object is illicit (theft, murder), the bet has no moral or juridical value; nevertheless the winner may ask for (not demand), accept and retain the prize; the loser, moreover, has no duty to pay it; having paid it, strictly speaking according to the Italian Civil Code (arts. 1418, 1343-46), he could claim it back in court, if the contract is civilly illicit. Lawfulness also concerns the prize, which must be within the person's means and of a measure morally possible for him, the purpose must be honest (the aim of profit can also be honest), and fraud and violence must be excluded.
The Italian Civil Code (arts. 1933-35) does not grant a judicial action to demand the prize of a bet, even if lawful; if the loser, however, spontaneously pays the prize, assuming the absence of fraud and of illicitness, he cannot recover in court the prize paid, unless it is a matter of a person lacking legal capacity (age, state of mind), to whom such an action is granted. Exceptions to this rule (since Roman law) are bets made on the occasion of races of every kind, of sports games, or of games that train in the handling of arms (target shooting). But even here the law grants the loser the right to ask the judge to reject or reduce the winner's claim, if the stake was excessive.
A special figure is the bet tied to the outcome of a game. In this regard a distinction is made for the strictly recreational game, in which moderate relief is given to the body, and it is made more fit for the resumption of subsequent duties; a small added prize does not change the recreational nature, as happens in family circles (for possible excesses v. RISCHIO). But often profit becomes the sole or principal purpose of the game with high stakes; the game is then called juridical. In it the outcome depends either principally on the skill and attention of the player (game of skill, such as soccer, bowls, chess), totally or almost on chance (aleatory, such as dice, roulette dens, etc.), or partly on skill and partly on chance (mixed). And games of chance are precisely those in which the purpose of profit recurs and the winning or the loss is entirely or almost aleatory.
In morals, juridical games are in themselves lawful under the due conditions (v. above). According to a classical expression, the game must be added to life as salt to food; and just as everyone may spend part of his means on honest recreations, so he may for the game; provided that discernment measures the circumstances (v. DIVERTIMENTI). Unfortunately the abuses that render it illicit are easy: through excess of time, to the detriment of one's duties; through excess of stake, with harm to justice and charity; through excess of passion, a cause of sins (blasphemy, hatreds, loss of love for family, for work); through excess of greed, which drives to frauds, deceits toward the inexperienced, etc. Whoever uses frauds, or stakes things not his own (minors, persons lacking capacity, a husband who stakes his wife's goods) and probably whoever stakes excessive amounts, the game becoming illicit, does not make a valid contract; therefore the loser is not obliged to any payment, nor can the winner in conscience retain the prize. The excess in the stake is relative, that is, when the person puts himself in danger of harming family and social duties. The eventual fault takes its specification from the virtue offended (charity, justice, temperance, etc.).
The civil law, in order to avoid grave social harms, imposes severe prohibitions with grave penalties; and according to the more probable opinion, even if no other duties are harmed, it obliges in conscience. Prohibited are games of chance, even disguised, of whatever kind, in a public place or one open to the public or private. The penalties are arrest from three months to a year and a fine, doubled for whoever keeps premises for games, for whoever plays in a public establishment or stakes a considerable amount or when a minor under eighteen years of age takes part.
Public establishments, authorized to keep gaming or billiard rooms, have the license for determined games, with the exclusion of others. The proprietor who tolerates prohibited games therein is punished with a fine and may lose the license. The sums and the implements found by the police are seized (Italian Penal Code, arts. 719-23; Law of Public Security, art. 110).
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