The Right to Welsh

The U.S. Army suffered no qualms when slot machines were installed in the officers' club in Murnau, Germany, and were rigged to keep 700 of every $1 played. Indeed, the club's profits reached a welcome alltime high when Major Robert G. Wallace fed $7,000 into the one-armed bandits over a period of nine months. There was, however, an offense against military propriety: in the process of buying rolls of quarters from the bar, Wallace passed $2,000 in rubber checks. A general court-martial sentenced him to dismissal from the service.

By the time Wallace's case got to the U.S. Court of Military Appeals, his sentence had been reduced to forfeiture of $900 in pay--for him, little more than a month's losses. Even so, the nation's highest military court reversed his conviction.

Whether legal or illegal, ruled Judge Homer Ferguson for the court, gambling is "against public policy, and the courts will not lend their offices to enforcement of obligations arising therefrom." Though Nevada, for example, both licenses and taxes gambling, "the courts of that state deny any right of recovery on gaming transactions." In the same vein, said Ferguson, "the issuance of a worthless check in a gambling game or as a means of facilitating a gaming transaction cannot be made the basis of a criminal prosecution for allegedly 'dishonorable' conduct."

In bemused disagreement, Chief Judge Robert E. Quinn declared: "It can hardly be argued that all gambling is contrary to public policy." All insurance, he noted, is "socially desirable" betting; all courts sanction even "one-shot" insurance bets "against rain on the day of a big event." And what about church-sponsored bingo games? "Speculation in the stock and grain markets is lawful," continued Quinn. "Betting at pari-mutuel tracks is well established." As a result, argued the judge, "I disagree with the majority's conclusion that playing a slot machine, where not prohibited by law, is contrary to the good morals and public policy of the military community." Quinn would have reversed the conviction on a less cosmic ground: the court-martial failed to prove that Major Wallace's checks were passed as "ordinary commercial instruments, and not as IOUs."

For the majority, Judge Ferguson insisted: "The club gambled on the accused having money in the bank and lost. Having done so, it cannot look to the law as a club to hold over those foolish enough to engage in this type of dissipation."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.