Legal wager

In the Roman litigation system, while the Legis Actiones procedure was in force during the early Republic, both parties had to lay down a wager at the preliminary hearing, probably to discourage frivolous litigation. In some cases, if the party lost, the wager went to the other party, to compensate him for his inconvenience, rather than to the court to cover costs. There were three different types of legis actiones, and the wager differed in each one.

The standard procedure for litigation under the legis actiones system, it was used whenever another procedure was not proscribed by statute. Both parties had to lay down a wager of 50 asses, 500 if the matter under dispute was worth 1000 or more. The wager of the winning party would be returned, but the loser's would be forfeited to the state. While the reasoning lay, in theory, in the idea of a sacrifice to the gods, its main effect was to discourage frivolous litigation since the sums laid down as wagers were substantial.

This procedure (in full, "legis actio per iudicis arbitrive postulationem", "complaint before the judge or arbiter") was used only in some in personam cases laid down by statute. It did not require any wager at all and so was much less risky for the plaintiff.

Used from around the 3rd century BC for the recovery of a specific thing or specific sum of money (such as from a debtor), it did not require a wager as such, but the parties exchanged promises to the effect that the loser would pay to the winner one third of the sum at issue. If the plaintiff won, he received four thirds of the sum, and the defendant received one third of the sum if he won.

WAGER (derived, through Fr. wagier, gagier, from Lat. vadium, a pledge), a bet or stake. Wagers in the ordinary sense of the term are dealt with under the headings Gaming and Betting; but the method of wagering - in principle the putting of a decision to the hazard - has had extended employment in various cases which may be noticed here. The determination of cases, civil and criminal, by means of wager or analogous forms of procedure, was a characteristic feature of ancient law. The legis actin sacramenti at Rome - at first a real, then a fictitious, wager - and the wagers "of battle" and "of law" in England, of the highest antiquity in their origin, survived up to a comparatively late period in the history of both legal systems. The form of the wager survived long after its reason had been forgotten. The general prevalence of the wager form of proceeding is perhaps to be attributed to the early conception of a judge as a mere referee who decided the dispute submitted to him, not as an executive officer of the state, but as an arbitrator casually called in (see , Ancient Law, c. x.).

...
Wikipedia