BETTING AND GAMBLING. — A bet is a bilateral aleatory contract by which two parties, unable to agree on the truth or outcome of a matter, promise a prize (a sum or stake) to the one for whom the truth or event turns out favourably.
A bet is morally licit and gives rise to an obligation of conscience when certain conditions are met. The first is bilateral character: both parties must be bound; if the obligation falls on only one, it is rather a conventional penalty. The second condition is aleatory character (both parties are exposed to equal risk, ignorant of the truth of the matter or event). If one party has knowledge of it, this destroys parity; in the case of a game, what is required instead is a proportionate equality or near-equality of skill between the contestants. However, if one party, with full knowledge of the matter, nonetheless accepts the game or its continuation to his own detriment, it is not unlikely that the obligation persists, since nothing prevents one from consenting to another’s victory out of pure liberality (for example, parents may do this with their children). Further conditions are required: the moral liceity of the thing wagered upon. If the object is illicit (theft, murder), the bet has no moral or legal validity; nevertheless, the winner may ask for (but not demand), accept, and retain the prize; the loser, moreover, has no duty to pay it; if paid, strictly speaking under the Italian Civil Code (arts. 1418, 1343–46), he could judicially reclaim it if the contract is civilly illicit. Liceity also pertains to the prize, which must be within the person’s means and of a size that is morally possible for him, an honest purpose (honest gain may even be the aim), and the exclusion of fraud and violence.
The Italian Civil Code (arts. 1933–35) does not grant judicial action to claim the prize of a bet, even if
it is licit; if, however, the loser pays the prize voluntarily, assuming the absence of fraud and illiceity, he cannot reclaim it in court, unless the payer is a person under disability (age, mental state), to whom such an action is granted. Exceptions to this rule (dating back to Roman law) are bets made on the outcome of races of every kind, sporting contests, or games that train the handling of weapons (target shooting). Even here, however, the law allows the loser to ask the judge to reject or reduce the winner’s claim if the stake was excessive.
A special case is the bet tied to the outcome of a game. In this regard, a distinction is made between strictly recreational play, which gives the body moderate relief and makes it more fit for the resumption of subsequent duties; a small prize added does not alter its recreational nature, as happens in family circles (for possible excesses V. RISK). But often gain becomes the sole or principal aim of the game with high stakes; the game is then called juridical. In it, the outcome depends either mainly on the player’s skill and attention (industrial games, such as football, bowls, chess), entirely or almost entirely on chance (aleatory games, such as dice, roulette, etc.), or partly on skill and partly on chance (mixed). And games of chance are precisely those in which the aim of gain occurs and winning or losing is entirely or almost entirely aleatory.
In moral theology, juridical games are licit in themselves under the due conditions (v. above). According to a classical expression, play should be added to life as salt to food; and just as one may spend part of one’s wealth on honest diversions, so too may one spend it on play; provided that discretion measures the circumstances (v. AMUSEMENTS). Unfortunately, abuses are easily made that render it illicit: by excess of time, by neglect of one’s duties, by excess of stake, by harm to justice and charity; by excess of passion, causing sins (blasphemy), hatred, loss of love for family and work; by excess of greed, which leads to fraud, deception of the inexperienced, etc. Whoever practises fraud, or risks things not his own (minors, persons under disability, a husband risking his wife’s property), and probably whoever stakes excessive amounts, rendering the game illicit, does not make a valid contract; hence the loser is not bound to pay anything, nor may the winner in conscience retain the prize. Excess in the stake is relative, occurring when the person risks harm to family and social duties. Any fault assumes its specific character from the virtue offended (charity, justice, temperance, etc.).
Civil law, to avoid serious social harm, imposes strict prohibitions with severe penalties; and according to the more probable opinion, it also binds in conscience even when other duties are not directly violated. Forbidden are games of chance, even if disguised, of whatever kind, in a public place or open to the public or private. The penalties are imprisonment from three months to one year and a fine, doubled for those who keep premises for gambling, for those who gamble in a public establishment, or who stake a large sum, or when a minor under eighteen participates.
Public establishments licensed to keep gaming or billiard rooms are authorised only for certain games, excluding others. The proprietor who tolerates forbidden games is punished with a fine and may lose his licence. Sums and instruments found by the police are confiscated (Italian Penal Code, arts. 719–23; Public Safety Law, art. 110).