Tuesday 28 April 2020

When Is A Bet,

not a bet?


an interesting question, and one that 2 Canadians found out about the question the hard way, photograph Tumisu/Pixabay, Edmund Mark Hooper and Michel Primeau ended up playing three simple games of Rock, Paper, Scissors, it is important to point out that these two guys were serious, and even had a notarized contract that mentioned the mortgage on Hooper’s house, so how much was the bet? a whopping $517,000! after 2 of the 3 games Edmund Mark Hooper lost, but all was not lost according to Canadian law, for a wagering contract to be valid it must be based on activities “requiring only skill or bodily exertion on the part of the parties,” and the amount wagered must not be excessive. Interestingly, in the 2017 judgement, a Supreme Court Justice found that the bet between Hooper and Primeau was based on a game of skill, but ruled it invalid because the amount wagered was excessive, “[The game] can, in certain precise circumstances, call upon the skill of the parties, particularly in the speed of execution, the sense of observation or the putting in place of a strategic sequence,” Justice Chantal Chatelain wrote in her sentence, that was little consolation for Primeau, who had still lost the $517,000, so he appealed the 2017 decision. Unfortunately for him, the verdict reached by another court on April 17 was even worse. This time around, the judge ruled not only that the amount wagered was excessive, but also that “it seems evident … that the game also involves a large part of chance, so that it does not take ‘only skill or bodily exertion on the part of the parties,'” as the law demands, can you imagine going home to your signification other half and saying, "we have got to move, I just lost the house on 3 games of Rock, Paper, Scissors", it is a sure bet that who ever said that would lose a lot more than the house!


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