The Virginia Gazette

Extract from the Commentaries of the celebrated and ingenious Dr. Blackstone.

Next to that of Luxury naturally follows the Offence of Gaming, which is generally introduced to supply, or retrieve, the Expenses occasioned by the former; it being a Kind of tacit Confession that the Company engaged therein do, in general, exceed the Bounds of their respective Fortunes, and therefore they cast Lots to determine upon whom the Ruin shall at present fall, that the rest may be saved a little longer. But, taken in any Light, it is an Offence of the most alarming Nature; tending, by necessary Consequence, to promote publick Idleness, Theft, and Debauchery, among those of a lower Class; and, among Persons of a Superior Rank, it hath frequently been attended with the sudden Ruin and Desolation of ancient and opulent Families, and abandoned Prostitution of every Principle of Honour and Virtue, and too often hath ended in Self-Murder. To restrain this pernicious Vice, among the inferiour Sort of People, the Statute 33d Henry VIII. Chapter 9th, was made, which prohibits, to all but Gentlemen, the Games of Tennis, Tables, Cards, Dice, Bowls, and other unlawful Diversions there specified, unless in the Time of Christmas, under pecuniary Pains and Imprisonment; and the same Law, and also the Statute 30th George II. Chapter 24th, inflict pecuniary Penalties, as well upon the Master of any Publick House wherein Servants are permitted to game, as upon the Servants themselves who are found gaming there.

But this is not the principal Ground of modern Complaint; it is the Gaming in high Life, that demands the Attention of the Magistrate, a Passion to which every valuable Consideration is made a Sacrifice, and which we seem to have inherited from our Ancestors the ancient Germans, whom Tacitus describes to have been bewitched with the Spirit of Play to a most exorbitant Degree. "They addict themselves (says he) to Dice, which is wonderful, when sober, and as a serious Employment, with such a mad Desire of winning or losing, that, when it dropped of every Thing else, they will stake at last their Liberty, and their very Selves. The Loser goes into a voluntary Slavery; and, though younger and stronger than his Antagonist, suffers himself to be bound and sold. And this Perseverance in so bad a Cause they call the Point of Honour."