(689) SPONSIONES LUDICRAE: EYES DOWN
On 16 October 2007 Lord Brodie in the Court of Session ordered the freezing of Jean McCullagh’s bank account and forbade the Mecca Organisation to make payment to her of the sum of £1 million which she had won playing bingo at the company’s Glasgow Forge Mecca Hall the previous Friday evening. The action had been raised by Mrs McCullagh’s sister and two sisters-in-law, who claimed they had an informal arrangement with her that bingo winnings by any one of them would be shared with the others. Shades of Robertson v Anderson 2003 SLT 235, where it was held that such an agreement was not a sponsio ludicra and was therefore enforceable (see No 111). Note too that the doctrine of sponsiones ludicrae is in any event no more, having been abolished when section 335 of the Gambling Act 2005 came into force on 1 September 2007.