GIFT ENTERPRISE

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

GIFT ENTERPRISEAuthored
The Law Mind • 1066 words
Definition
A gift enterprise is a promotional scheme in which purchasers of goods or services receive the chance to win prizes distributed by lot or chance among participants. The essential structure involves a merchant offering goods for sale — typically at or near their ordinary price — while attaching to each purchase a ticket, coupon, or share entitling the buyer to participate in a drawing for additional articles of property. The prizes are awarded by chance rather than skill, and the scheme is organized in advance with a defined pool of participants. Though the name contains the word "gift," nothing is gratuitously given. The chance at a prize is bundled with a commercial transaction. Courts and legislatures early recognized that gift enterprises were a species of lottery dressed in commercial clothing, and both Black's and Bouvier's confirm that the phrase had acquired sufficient notoriety by the late nineteenth century that courts could take judicial notice of its meaning without requiring proof.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not a current general-vocabulary term. "Gift enterprise" does not appear as a standard entry in modern general dictionaries, reflecting that the term has largely passed out of everyday use. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 defines a gift enterprise as "a scheme for distributing gifts or prizes by lot among the purchasers of some article," noting its common use among merchants as a sales incentive. The legal significance lies in what the common usage obscured. Ordinary speakers understood a gift enterprise as a harmless promotional device — a merchant's way of rewarding customers. Courts understood it as a lottery in disguise, subjecting it to anti-lottery statutes regardless of the commercial wrapper. The gap between popular understanding and legal classification was the central battleground in nineteenth-century litigation.
Common Confusion
GIFT ENTERPRISE vs. LOTTERY: The two terms describe overlapping but not identical concepts. A lottery in its pure form requires participants to pay directly for a chance at a prize, with no other transaction involved. A gift enterprise adds a layer of commercial legitimacy by pairing the chance with the purchase of a genuine article of value. Promoters argued this distinction exempted gift enterprises from lottery prohibitions. Courts largely rejected the argument, holding that the presence of a commercial sale did not purify the lottery element. Some statutes explicitly named gift enterprises alongside lotteries to eliminate the ambiguity. GIFT ENTERPRISE vs. PREMIUM SCHEME: A premium scheme rewards every purchaser with a guaranteed bonus item. A gift enterprise rewards only winners selected by chance. The chance element is the distinguishing feature and the source of legal jeopardy.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "gift enterprise" in historical legal sources should treat it primarily as a gambling-law term with peak relevance from roughly 1850 to 1920. Several research traps are worth flagging: Statutory searches require patience. Anti-lottery statutes of the nineteenth century varied widely in whether they explicitly named gift enterprises. Some states required separate gift enterprise statutes; others applied existing lottery law by judicial interpretation. A researcher finding no specific gift enterprise statute in a jurisdiction should not conclude the practice was lawful — case law may have extended lottery statutes to cover it. Federal postal law is a critical corpus connection. Congress enacted legislation prohibiting use of the mails to promote lotteries and gift enterprises, and federal postal decisions constitute a substantial body of authority separate from state court holdings. Any thorough research into nineteenth-century gift enterprise law must account for the postal enforcement track. The term is nearly obsolete in modern legal usage. Contemporary promotional schemes — sweepstakes, scratch tickets, loyalty programs — are governed by modern consumer protection and gambling statutes that do not use this vocabulary. A researcher applying the term to modern arrangements should proceed cautiously; regulatory agencies and modern courts will use different classifications. Corpus connections include lottery law, gaming and gambling regulation, postal fraud, and consumer protection. The gift enterprise cases also intersect with early commercial law discussions of what constitutes adequate consideration, since promoters sometimes argued that the purchase price paid for the underlying goods satisfied any consideration requirement for the prize component.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in close agreement, with both reproducing nearly identical language and citing the same two cases (81 Ind. 17 and 106 Mass. 422) for the proposition that courts may take judicial notice of the term's meaning. This convergence is itself informative: the term was sufficiently settled by the time both dictionaries were compiled that extended definition was unnecessary. Bouvier's adds a reference pointing researchers toward LOTTERY and SALE, signaling that the term sits at the intersection of those two bodies of law rather than constituting an independent legal category. The secondary Bouvier's excerpt reproduced in source materials appears to be a fragment from a separate discussion of gifts generally (concerning pass books and delivery to infant donees), which is unrelated to gift enterprises and should be disregarded for this entry. What the historical dictionaries do not address: neither source discusses the federal postal dimension, the specific elements required to distinguish a gift enterprise from a lawful premium scheme, or the varying statutory treatments across jurisdictions. Researchers relying solely on dictionary definitions will miss the doctrinal complexity developed in case law.
Jurisdictional Note
Treatment varied by state. Some jurisdictions enacted statutes expressly prohibiting gift enterprises by name; others relied on judicial extension of general lottery statutes. The federal government addressed gift enterprises directly in postal regulations, creating a parallel enforcement regime. Modern state gambling statutes have generally superseded or subsumed the old gift enterprise category without preserving the terminology.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia: Gift Tax Overview (tax_84) The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia: Gift-Splitting, Tuition and Medical Exclusions, and Special Gift Tax Rules (estates_125) Note: These encyclopedia entries address the law of gifts in the donative and tax sense, not gift enterprises as promotional lottery schemes. The conceptual overlap is limited to the word "gift." Researchers focused on gift enterprises as a gambling-law matter will not find directly relevant material in these entries; they are cross-referenced here for researchers who arrive at this entry while researching gift law generally and need to distinguish the two bodies of doctrine.
Related Terms
Lottery Raffle Gaming and Gambling Consideration Premium (commercial) Postal Fraud Sweepstakes Chance (as legal element) Sale
GIFT ENTERPRISEmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
A scheme for the division or distribution of certain articles of property, to be determined by chance, among those who have taken shares in the scheme. The phrase has attained such a notoriety as to justify a court in taking ju- dicial notice of what is meant and understood by it. 81 Ind. 17; 106 Mass. 422.
GIFT ENTERPRISEmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
bank to his infant son, the gift will not be defeated by the failure of the father to deliver to the son the pass book evidencing the gift, the father as natural guardian being the proper custodian of such book during the infancy of the son; 62 Hun 194. The instances here given are merely illus- trative of the cases on the subject of the necessity of delivery, the number of which is almost without limit. For a full discus- sion of the subject, see Thornt. Gifts & Adv. ch. ix., where the cases are collected; 15 Am. L. Reg. N. S. 701, n.; 15 Va. L. J. 737; 82 Cent. L. J. 11; 25 Ir. L. T. 4, 409. As to what circumstances will dispense with actual physical delivery, see 9 id. 639; 26 Am. L. Reg. 587: Law Q. Rev. 446; see also DONATIO MORTIS CAUSA, with respect to delivery, the requisites of which in the two classes of gifts are the same ; Thornt. Gifts § 130; 1 Nott & McC. 237; 2 Sandf. Ch. 400. "Gifts inter vivos and gifts causa mortis differ in nothing, ex- cept that the latter are made in expecta- tion of death, become effectual only upon the death of the donor, and may be re- voked. Otherwise, the same principles apply to each." 46 Me. 48; 3 Del. Ch. 51; 89 Mo. 546; 80 N. Y. 422; 78 Ky. 572;.54 Md. 175. A parol gift of land is valid when possession is taken and valuable improve- ments are made thereunder; 83 Tex. 563. When the gift is perfect it is then irre- vocable, unless it is prejudicial to credit- ors or the donor was under a legal incapacity or was circumvented by fraud; except in case of donatio mortis causa (q. v.), as to which one of the distinguishing char- acteristics is that it is revocable during the donor's life. If a man, intending to give a jewel to another, say to him, Here I give you my ring with the ruby in it, etc., and with his own hand delivers it to the party, this will be a good gift notwithstanding the ring bear any other jewel, being delivered by the party himself to the person to whom given; Bacon, Max. 87. See 66 Hun 632. Where a father bought a ticket in a lot- tery, which he declared he gave to his in- fant daughter E., and wrote her name upon it, and after the ticket had drawn a prize he declared that he had given the ticket to his child E., and that the prize money was hers, this was held sufficient for a jury to infer all the formality requi- site to a valid gift, and that the title in the money was complete and vested in E. See 10 Johns. 293. Where notes are endorsed by the owner, placed in a pocketbook, and the packet marked with the name of the donees, a delivery to one of the donees is sufficient, though he at once returns the packet to the donor to keep for the pres- ent; 51 Mo. App. 237. A certificate of deposit may be the sub- ject of gift, and, when endorsed and deliv ered for such purpose, the gift is perfect and cannot be revoked by the donor before the money is collected; 97 Ala. 700. A written assignment, under seal, of money in the hands of a third person, delivered to the assignee, constitutes a valid gift and ac- ceptance of the money; 141 Ν. Υ. 179. See two papers containing an extended examination and discussion of the authori- ties on the subject of gifts causa mortis of checks and orders published after the title on that subject had gone through the press; 36 Am. L. Reg. 247, 289. A special act directing a board of super- visors of a city to pay a certain sum as com- pensation for the improvement of streets to an individual was held to be a gift of public money to an individual, and hence within the inhibition of the constitution and void; 99 Cal. 17. See, generally, Thornton, Gifts and Ad- vancements, and an elaborate classified list of authorities in the St. Louis Law Library Catalogue. DONATIO INTER VIVOS; Do- NATIO MORTIS CAUSA; DONATIO. MORNING
GIFT ENTERPRISEmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
A scheme for the division or distribution of certain ar- ticles of property, to be determined by chance, amongst those who have taken shares in the scheme; the phrase has at tained such a notoriety as to justify courts in taking judicial notice of what is meant and understood; 81 Ind. 17; 106 Mass. 422. See LOTTERY; SALE, A business, such as the selling of books or works of art, the publication of a newspaper, etc., in which presents are given to purchasers as an inducement. 14 A. & E. Ency. 2nd ed., 1005.

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