Definition
In legal contexts, a purse is a sum of money or other thing of value offered as a prize or award to be competed for. The legal usage centers not on the container but on the prize: a purse is something offered by a party who does not themselves compete, to be won by one or more of those who do. The offeror is certain to lose the thing offered — it will go to a contestant — but has no chance of winning it back. This distinguishes a purse from a bet or wager, where each party risks something and stands to win something.
The term appears most often in the context of sporting contests, races, and competitive events, where a purse is the total prize money made available to competitors.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A small bag for carrying money; a handbag; a quantity of money given for a particular purpose.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A small bag or pouch drawn together at the opening, used to carry money; by extension, any receptacle for money carried on the person; a sum of money offered as a prize or collected as a present.
The common meaning encompasses both the physical object (the bag) and the sum of money. The legal meaning discards the physical object entirely and focuses on a specific type of monetary prize — one offered by a non-competing party for the benefit of contestants. The critical legal distinction is not what holds the money, but who risks it and who can win it.
Common Confusion
Purse, prize, and premium are frequently grouped together in legal definitions and are often used interchangeably. The historical dictionaries treat the three as a cluster. The relevant distinction is structural: all three involve a non-competing offeror who will certainly lose the thing offered to one or more contestants, but the terms can carry different connotations depending on context (monetary award vs. trophy vs. bonus for performance). A purse also differs from a bet or wager: in a wager, both parties risk something and both have a chance to win. In a purse, only the contestants compete; the offeror simply pays. Anderson's Dictionary of Law cross-references BET and PRIZE for this reason.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter "purse" most often in two clusters of historical legal material: (1) cases and statutes concerning gambling, gaming, and wagering law, where courts were tasked with distinguishing lawful prize competitions from illegal lotteries or wagers; and (2) sporting law and contract disputes arising from prize fights, horse races, and other competitions where the purse was the subject of a contractual obligation.
The gambling law context is particularly important. Whether a competition for a purse constituted illegal gambling turned on the structure of the offer — who contributed, who competed, and whether the outcome depended on skill or chance. Courts applied the purse/prize/wager distinction rigorously, and researchers should not assume that a "purse" in a 19th-century case was treated identically to a modern athletic prize fund.
Historical sources use "purse" loosely in non-legal writing to mean simply a sum of money or a fund, which can create ambiguity when reading older case records, statutes, or legislative debates. The legal term of art is narrower: it implies a structured competitive offer, not merely a pooled fund.
The cross-reference in Anderson's to BET and PRIZE signals that researchers should follow those threads when investigating the legal boundaries of purse competitions. Prize fight law, in particular, generated substantial 19th-century litigation and statutory activity at the state level.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) offer nearly identical definitions drawn from the same New York authority, Harris v. White, 81 N.Y. 539. Both editions define a purse — grouped with prize and premium — as something valuable offered by a non-competing party, with the certainty that the offeror will lose it to a contestant. The definition is brief and primarily analytical, identifying the structural features that make a purse legally distinct from a wager.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law does not define the term independently, directing the reader instead to BET and PRIZE. This cross-referential approach reflects the reality that "purse" functioned as part of a conceptual cluster in gaming and competition law rather than as a standalone term with an independent doctrinal body.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the modern regulatory context for purses in professional sports (boxing commissions, racing authorities), which is now governed by statute and administrative regulation at the state level rather than by common law principles. Researchers using 19th-century dictionary definitions should not project those definitions onto modern regulated sports contexts without checking applicable state statutes and regulatory schemes.
Jurisdictional Note
Regulation of prize purses in professional athletics — particularly boxing — is now primarily a matter of state law, with significant variation in licensing, reporting, and payment requirements across jurisdictions. The common law definition drawn from New York authority remains a useful baseline for historical research, but modern disputes involving purses in regulated sports will turn on state athletic commission rules rather than on this definition.