Opinion
38256.
DECIDED APRIL 18, 1960.
Lottery. Floyd City Court. Before Judge Maddox. January 12, 1960.
Robert L. Scoggin, Jerry L. Minge, for plaintiff in error.
Chastine Parker, Solicitor-General, contra.
Where, as here, there is sufficient evidence to sustain a verdict of guilty and the special grounds are not meritorious, no cause for reversal is shown.
DECIDED APRIL 18, 1960.
This case is one which arises under the provisions of Code § 26-6502 which reads: "Any person who, by himself or another, shall keep, maintain, employ, or carry on any lottery or other scheme or device for the hazarding of any money or valuable thing, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." This section includes any sort of scheme or device for the hazarding of money or other thing of value. The case before us involves what is generally known as a baseball parlay game. The contents of the indictment are that the defendant is charged with and accused of the offense of misdemeanor for that he "did unlawfully keep, maintain, employ and carry on a lottery, the same being a scheme and device for the hazarding of money, known and designated as the baseball parlay game, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof."
The case proceeded to trial and resulted in a verdict of guilty. A motion for a new trial was filed on the statutory grounds and later amended to contain two special grounds. The court denied the motion for a new trial, and it is on this judgment that the case is here for review.
The evidence shows substantially that George Lemming, a policeman called as a witness for the State, testified that he knew the defendant and that on or about June 10th, while another officer was with him checking the beat at approximately 11 p. m., they went past the defendant's pool hall and didn't see anyone downstairs, whereupon they decided to go in; that they went up the steps to a balcony which adjoined a small office; that the defendant was in the office and a man was cleaning up; that the defendant had some lottery tickets in his hand, which are known as the baseball parlay game lottery; that the officer walked up back of the defendant and took the tickets out of the defendant's hand and also removed some from the top of the desk and some from the desk drawer; that these tickets are shown as an exhibit in the record before us; that the exhibit also contained results of a ticker machine which brings in results of baseball games; that the ticker tape which comes out of the ticker machine is part of the baseball parlay game; that at the time the witness entered the defendant's place of business the defendant had a book of the baseball parlay tickets in his hand; that some of the evidence seized by the officers showed that tickets had been played and pulled off and put in a big sack; that the witness did not know the date of the tickets, how much was paid out on them and how much was won, but that some of the tickets did have dates on them. The witness picked up a ticket while testifying, showing that at least one of the tickets had the name of the player on it, and one that showed "$8.40."
Randy Michaels, another policeman, testified that he was with Mr. Lemming when they went into the pool room. He testified substantially as did Mr. Lemming, stating that at the time they were questioning the defendant, the defendant told them that all of the tickets were not his, that some of them belonged to another man who held a Federal gambling stamp. The witness then testified as to the method of operating the lottery herein involved. The witness also testified that the defendant stated that he was a gambler and intended to keep gambling as long as he could put his hands on gambling paraphernalia, regardless of where he was.
This court has written only one other case directly in point on a charge of lottery known as the baseball parlay game. That case is Grant v. State, 75 Ga. App. 784 ( 44 S.E.2d 513). That case and the case at bar are identical except that the evidence in each case differs only in the manner of operating such lottery.
The evidence in the instant case is amply sufficient to sustain the verdict and the errors assigned by counsel for the defendant in the two special grounds are not meritorious. Special ground 1 assigns error on certain evidence which was alleged to have been illegally admitted. Special ground 2 assigns error because of the admission of the lottery tickets into evidence.
Counsel for the defendant and for the State call our attention to a number of cases which refer to the operation of other types of lottery games, which cases are not applicable because none of them refer to baseball parlay game lotteries.
The court did not err in any of the rulings.
Judgment affirmed. Townsend, Carlisle, and Frankum, JJ., concur.