SNOOKER AND OTHER POOL GAMES

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13433, 21 July 1911, Page 7

SNOOKER AND OTHER POOL GAMES

AN INTERESTING DECISION. Games of Skill, Not Chance. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON. July 21. A case of importance to proprietors of billiard saloons was decided by the Full Court fo-day, when John Jackson, of Auckland, appealed against his conviction for keeping a common gaming house. The ease was heard by Sir Piobert Stout, Sir Joshua Williams, and Justices Denniston, Edwards, and Chapman. It was admitted that ihe stem; - *- played wore ordinary English ’id.-, and all varieties of the gas a games where skill was co • >• clement of chance of vann '* Sir Joshua Williams, in his judgment, said he thought there could be no doubt that tile term “gaming house” os used in the Statue meant prima faciea. a gaming house which would have been indictable as a common laws nuisance. He was of opinion that the games played r.n the premises were not only not unlawful games, but games which wore expressly recognised as the lawful practice of playing in that way in licensed billiard rooms, and had been carried on for many years without objection, and there was nothing very much from which it could he inferred that playing in that way had during those years or is now detrimental to public morals. Justice Denniston, Edwards, and Chapman agreed. The Chief Justice dissented. The conviction was quashed. FURTHER PARTICULARS. WELLINGTON, Julv 21. In the case of Scott v. Jackson, heard at the last Appeal Court, the appeal was allowed, and the conviction quashed. By this decision the Court lays it down that •nookcr and other pool games, though containing an element of chance, are mainly games of skill, and not games of chance in the meaning of the Gaming Act,