If several parties each put up a piece of money and then decide by throwing dice who shall have the aggregate sum, or “pool,” this is unquestionably a game of chance. The sum put up by each is his bet and the pool gamed for is the stake.
This is exactly what the parties did in this case. The only variation is that when the pool was raised it was exchanged for a turkey, which then stood in lieu of and became the stake, and further, they chose to style the transaction a raffle and it is contended that a raffle is a kind of lottery and hence not a game of chance. But lotteries are a species of gambling and .because thereof the Supreme Court of the United States has held that they were immoral and their circulars and tickets could be excluded from the mails.
Technically, a person can not be said to flay at a lottery. The tickets are drawn out of a wheel. But in this case the parties played dice for the possession of the turkey and success depended “on the hazard of the die.” The defendant is liable both because he threw dice as agent for one of the players and because he got up the game. In misdemeanors all aiders, abettors and accessories are principals.
The transaction was simply gaming with dice, with ten cent bets and for a turkey as a “pool.” The case of State *705v. Bryant, 74 N. C., 207, merely holds that the transaction there described was a lottery and the keeper thereof and the purchasers of tickets therein were not indictable for playing at a game of chance under Ch. 32, Sec. 72, Battle’s Revisal (now The Oode, Sec. 1045), though the seller would be liable under The Oode, Sections 1047, 1048. Another “gift enterprise” was held a lottery and the holder of it liable to indictment under The Oode, Sec. 1047 in State v. Lumsden, 89 N. C., 572, and such lottery was held to be a “game of hazard.” There is no adjudication as to the liability of the purchasers of the tickets.
"Whatever defects there were in the law of gambling were intended to be cured by Acts 1891, Ch. 29, which makes it “unlawful for any person to play at any game of chance at which money, property or other thing of value is bet, whether the same be at stake or not, and those who play and those who bet thereon shall be guilty of a misde. meanor.” This covers the present case and all other forms of raffling.
It must be noted that this statute and this decision have no application to the long prevailing custom of “shooting for beef,” shooting at turkeys and other similar trials of skill. It is true there each participant pays for the privilege or so-called “chance” of shooting for the prize, but there is no chance in the sense of the acts against gambling. These are trials of skill which the law has never discouraged, and not games of chance in any sense. Nor does the statute prohibit the social diversions in which the hostess offers prizes for the most successful player at cards or other games. In such cases, though there are games of chance, the players bet nothing. They lose .nothing if unsuccessful and pay nothing for the chance of winning.
No Error.