ARTHUR ANDREW CIPRIANI Vs. MACDONALD BURNETT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Their Lordships are invited in this case to assume the novel duty of adjudicating as to the winner of a sweepstake. The law of Trinidad is apparently less stringent than that of the United Kingdom on the subject. There the Gambling Prevention Ordinance (Laws of Trinidad and Tobago, 192,Ch. 28) by S. 10 enacts as follows: "Every sale or contract for the sale of a lottery ticket is hereby declared to be void and no action shall be maintained by any person in respect of any such sale or contract, except by the purchaser for the return of the money or other consideration, if any, paid thereon."

(2.) But by S. 15 it is provided that: "nothing in this Ordinance contained shall apply to any lottery or sweepstake organised and controlled by the Trinidad Turf Club or by any racing club or association affiliated to the Trinidad Turf Club at or in connexion with any race meeting held under the auspices of any such club or association." The sweepstake which has given rise to the present appeal was organized and controlled by the New Union Park Turf Club, a racing club affiliated to the Trinidad Turf Club, in connexion with their Easter race meeting in 1931, and being thus a sweepstake of the character described in the section just quoted; its legality was not called in question.

(3.) In order to understand how the controversy arose it is necessary to describe briefly the system on which the sweepstake was conducted. Tickets bearing a serial letter and a serial number were issued by the promoters and sold to the public, and the winning tickets were subsequently ascertained by a draw. The apparatus of the draw consisted of (1) a revolving sphere in which were placed a number of small balls, each marked with a letter corresponding to one of the series of letters on the tickets; and (2) a board on which were fixed in a row four revolving discs bearing equally spaced round their circumstances ten figures from 0 to 9, each disc being so placed in relation to a flexible pointer that when the disc came to rest after being spun the pointer indicated a particular figure on the circumference. There were also a number of sealed envelopes each containing the name of a horse which was running at the race meeting. The method of operating the apparatus was to revolve the sphere and then by opening a trap in the bottom of it to release one of the lettered balls which it contained. This gave the serial letter of a ticket. Simultaneously the four discs on the board were spun and when they came to rest the four numbers indicated by the pointers were read off, and in this way the serial number of a ticket was obtained. The combined letter and number were then displayed on a blackboard in presence of the assembled public and written on one of the sealed envelopes. The process was repeated until each envelope had been marked with a letter and number. At the conclusion of the race meeting the envelopes were opened and the owner of the ticket whose letter and number corresponded to the letter and number written on the envelope which was found to contain the name of the horse which had obtained the highest aggregate of points at the meeting was declared the winner of the first prize, which consisted of 25 per cent of the pool. There were also prizes consisting of diminishing percentages of the pool for each of the next seven horses, and 10 per cent of the pool was divisible among the holders of the tickets representing the remaining horses. The balance of the pool, amounting to 38? per cent was appointed in stated percentages to the sellers of tickets, the horse-owners, charity, the Turf Club Fund, and expenses. The tickets, in addition to showing the manner in which the pool was to be distributed bore on their face inter ali the following printed matter: "This ticket is sold subject to the condition that in the event of any dispute arising with respect to any matters connected with drawing of the sweepstake or the awarding of the prizes the decision of the Stewards of the Trinidad Turf Club thereon shall be accepted as final." "Payments will be made on horses in the order of running as placed by the Judge, subject to the result of any objection that may be made within a fortnight of the races having been run." "The decimal method of drawing will be used."