PASTIME - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

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The Law Mind • 762 words

Definition

In legal usage, "pastime" appears primarily in the context of gaming and wagering statutes, where it functions as a term of art describing recreational activities upon which bets may be placed. Historically, wagering laws frequently prohibited bets placed on "any game, sport, or pastime," with "pastime" serving as a catch-all category intended to capture amusements not otherwise covered by the more specific terms "game" or "sport." The term is not independently defined in most legal sources but derives its legal significance from its placement within this statutory and judicial formula.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Something which amuses, and serves to make time pass agreeably.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): That which amuses, and serves to make time pass agreeably; sport; amusement; diversion.

The common and legal meanings are not sharply divergent, but the legal context matters: in wagering law, "pastime" does not carry its casual, benign connotation. It operates as a legal category subject to regulatory prohibition, and its breadth is precisely its function — it sweeps in informal amusements that might escape the narrower terms "game" or "sport."

Common Confusion

The trio "game, sport, or pastime" appears so frequently together in wagering statutes and opinions that the three terms are often treated as interchangeable. They are not. Courts have occasionally been called upon to determine whether a particular activity qualifies as one or another, and the distinction can determine whether a wagering prohibition applies. As noted in Kentucky case law cited by Bouvier, a bet on an election cannot properly be characterized as a bet on a "pastime" — the term contemplates recreational or amusement activity, not civic or political events. Researchers should resist collapsing these three terms into a single undifferentiated concept.

Why It Matters in Research

"Pastime" is rarely the primary subject of legal analysis; it appears almost exclusively as one element of a statutory phrase. Researchers encountering it in historical gaming, wagering, or licensing materials should treat it as a signal to examine the full statutory context rather than the word in isolation.

Two traps are common in historical sources. First, the word's apparent ordinariness can cause researchers to overlook it as a term of legal significance. Because it reads as plain English, it may not be indexed or glossed in older digests, yet it can be outcome-determinative in wagering cases where the scope of the prohibited category is at issue. Second, the phrase "game, sport, or pastime" was reproduced across many state gaming statutes with minor variations, and the interpretation of "pastime" in one jurisdiction's case law may not transfer cleanly to another's.

The Bouvier citation to 2 Dana (Ky.) 347 is instructive as an example of a court drawing a definitional boundary around the term — specifically excluding electoral bets from its reach. Researchers working with 19th-century Kentucky materials or tracing the genealogy of gaming statutes in other states will find this a useful early marker of how courts began cabining the term's otherwise expansive reach.

In modern research contexts, "pastime" as a standalone legal term has largely receded. Contemporary gaming and wagering law tends toward more precise categorical language. Researchers in regulatory, licensing, or sports betting law will encounter it mainly in historical statutory language or in opinions interpreting older codes.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's treatment of "pastime" is minimal and oblique — the term appears not as a headword in its own right but as an incidental reference in the entry for "Passport," where the Kentucky case is cited to illustrate a boundary on wagering terminology. This placement underscores how lightly the historical legal dictionaries treat the term: it was not considered a primary legal concept deserving independent definition, but rather a component of a larger formulaic phrase.

What Bouvier and comparable historical sources miss is any affirmative definition of what does qualify as a pastime in the wagering context. The sources tell us what is excluded (an electoral bet) but not what is included beyond the obvious. This gap is characteristic of terms that functioned as legislative drafting catch-alls — their vagueness was deliberate, and courts were left to work out the edges case by case.

Jurisdictional Note

Because "pastime" functioned as a term within individual state gaming and wagering statutes, its scope varied by jurisdiction depending on how each state's courts construed the full phrase in which it appeared. Researchers should not assume that a construction from one state's courts controls in another.

PASTIMEmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A bet on an election, can- not, with strict propriety of language, be dominated, a bet on any game, sport, or "pastime" whatever. 2 Dana (Ky.) 347. PASSPORT (Fr. passer, to pass, port, harbor or gate). In Maritime Law. A paper containing a permission from a neu- tral state to the captain or master of a ship or vessel to proceed on the voyage proposed. It usually contains his name and residence, the name, property, descrip- tion, tonnage, and destination of the ship. the nature and quantity of the cargo, the place from whence it comes, and its desti- nation, with such other matters as the practice of the place requires. It is also called a sea-brief, or sea-letter (q.v.). But Marshall distinguishes sea-let- ter from passport, which latter, he says, is pretended to protect the ship, while the former relates to the cargo, destination, etc. See Jacobs, Sea-Laws 66, note. This document is indispensably necessary in time of war for the safety of every neu- tral vessel; Marsh. Ins. 317, 406 b. A Mediterranean pass (q v.), or protec- tion against the Barbary powers. A document granted in time of war to protect persons or property from the gen- eral operation of hostilities. Wheat. Int. Law, 3d Eng. ed. § 408; 1 Kent 161; 6 Wheat. 3. In most countries of continental Europe passports are given to travellers. These are intended to protect them on their jour- ney from all molestation while they are obedient to the laws. The secretary of state may issue, or cause to be issued in foreign countries by such diplomatic or consular officers of the United States, and under such rules as the president may pre- scribe, passports, but only to citizens of the United States; R. S. §§ 4075-4076. See