In the sixteenth year of the reign of Charles II an act was passed which might justly be entitled "An Act to legalise Gaming; to prevent wealthy Pigeons being plucked by artful Rooks, and to discourage Betting or Playing for large Sums upon Tick." An act of the same kind, passed in the reign of Queen Anne, was repealed in 1844, in consequence of its penalties being likely to fall heavy on some eminent sporting characters who had been so indiscreet as to receive sundry large sums in payment of bets lost to them upon credit. Its enactment and its repeal are significant indications of the state of the sporting world at the two respective periods. It seems to have been framed on a presumption that, in gaming, noble and wealthy sportsmen would be most likely to lose; and to have been repealed because certain noble and wealthy sportsmen had won, and received their bets. The parties in whose favour the act was repealed, were said to have been liable to penalties to the amount of £500,000: the law did not anticipate that lords and squires would be winners, nor intend that needy prosecutors should be enriched at their expense. The preamble and some of the provisions of the act of Charles II are here given as "Curiosities of Gambling Legislation."
"Whereas all lawful Games and Exercises should not be otherwise used than as innocent and moderate recreations, and not as constant trades or callings, to gain a living, or make unlawful advantage thereby; and whereas by the immoderate use of them many mischiefs and inconveniences do arise, and are dayly found to the maintaining and encouraging of sundry idle, loose, and disorderly persons in their dishonest, lewd, and dissolute course of life, and to the circumventing, deceiving, cousening, and debauching of many of the younger sort, both of the nobility and gentry, and others, to the loss of their precious time, and the utter ruin of their estates and fortunes, and withdrawing them from noble and laudable employments and exercises.
"Be it therefore enacted, that if any person or persons, of any degree or quality whatsoever, shall by any fraud, cousenage, circumvention, deceit, &c. in playing at Cards, Dice, Tables, Tennis, Bowls, Kittles, Shovel-board, or in or by Cock-fightings, Horse-races, Dog-matches, or Foot-races &c. or by betting on the sides or hands of such as play, win, obtain, or acquire any sum or sums of money or any other valuable thing; that then every person so offending shall _ipso facto_ forfeit treble the sum or value of money, or other thing, so won, gained, or acquired.