Cheats - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition cheats

Definition :

Cheats, deceitful practices, in defrauding on endeavouring to defraud another of his known rights, by means of some artful device, contrary to the plain rules of common honesty; as by playing with false dice, by causing an illiterate person to execute a deed to his prejudice, or reading it over to him in words different from those in which it is written; selling one commodity for another, or using false weights and measures, and the like, 1 Hawk. 188. 'If a person in the course of his trade or business, openly and publicly carried on, put a false mark or token upon an article so as to pass it off as a genuine one, when in fact it is only a spurious one, and the article is sold and money obtained by means of that false mark or token, that will be a cheat at Common Law.'-Per Cockburn, C.J., in R. v. Closs, (1857) 27 LJ MC 54. See also R. v. Vreones, (1891) 1 QB 360; R. v. Hamilton, 1901 (1) KB 740.

Cheating at play is punishable in like manner as obtaining money by false pretences under the (English) Gaming Act, 1845, s. 17. See Russell on Crimes