Hart-Agnew Law

The Hart–Agnew Law was an anti-gambling bill passed into law by the Legislature of the State of New York on June 11, 1908. It was an amalgam of bills enacted as Chapter 506 and 507 which were sponsored by right-wing Assemblyman Merwin K. Hart and Republican Senator George B. Agnew. [1]

For more than a decade, moral activists, including the Young Men's Christian Association, [2] had demanded New York enact legislation similar to that passed in 1898 by the state of New Jersey which banned both gambling and horse racing. [3] Newly elected Republican Governor of New York, Charles Evans Hughes would advocate changes to gambling laws and in January 1908 he recommended the repeal of the Percy-Gray Law of 1895 and replace it with strict new anti-gambling legislation that would provide substantial fines and a prison term for those convicted of betting. [4]

Although the Hart-Agnew law was regularly referred to as the anti-racing law,[5], horse racing did continue under the interpretation that oral betting between patrons was still legal. However, Governor Hughes ensured the law was strictly enforced [6] and on June 15, 1908 the New York Times reported that 150 police officers plus more than fifty in plain clothes arrived at Gravesend Race Track on Coney Island to uphold the new law. [7] Their instructions were to arrest men who congregated in groups of more than three plus arrest anyone who was seen writing anything on a newspaper, racing program or even a piece of plain paper that might be construed as betting.

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