ABSTRACT
On 10 January 1958, John Aspinall, Lady Mary Grace Osborne and John Richard Burke were arrested and charged with keeping a ‘common gaming house’. It has been claimed that his subsequent trial and conviction revolutionised Britain’s obsolete gaming legislation and ushered in an era of legalised casinos under the provisions of the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act. Gaming parties were dealt with by Defence Regulation 42CA, which allowed the police to investigate and prosecute illegal gaming parties without the evidence required to gain a warrant under the 1845 Gaming Act. Armed with new regulatory instruments under the wartime Defence Regulations, the police were no longer burdened with proving the guilt of a gaming party organiser. The immediate post-war years in Britain witnessed the re-establishment of off-course cash betting on horse racing as the most visible and therefore most thought-provoking aspect of illegal gambling activity in Britain.
