Evening Journal

Insurance Betting.
Washington Post.
When Lloyds, the insurance brokers of London, offered to issue a policy for $100,000 to a New York manufacturer at 20 per cent., or 5 to 1, against the contingency of Bryan's success in November, and later took the risk at 10½ per cent., a new class of American insurance contracts was established which may give the courts some difficulty should a test case be brought. The New York statutes make betting on an election as much of an offense as betting on a horserace, but Wall Street speculators are reported to have accepted Lloyds' proposition with such large amounts that the odds have been forced down to 5% to 1, the speculators taking upon themselves a chance of collecting without the assistance of a court of law.
The English "gambling act," which was enacted during the reign of George III., provided that no insurance shall be made "on the life or lives of any person or persons, or any other event or events whatsoever, wherein the person or persons for whose use, benefit, or on whose account such policy or policies shall be made, shall have no interest, or by way of gaming or wagering." An insurable interest which would entitle the insured to payment for his loss, as defined by the courts, exists when one is so situated with reference to the subject-matter that its destruction will cause him loss of money or legal right, or throw upon him some other liability. Therefore, if the insured had neither title nor right in the property, but stood in such relation to it that he had legal grounds for expecting some benefit from its continued existence, or loss from its destruction, as one authority has put it, his contract would be enforceable at law, whereas a gambler's interest would not be recognized.
Betting in New York may be under the ban, but the possibilities of insurance seems never to have been thoroughly tested.