can you provide the legal definition?
Right, so first off...
S.3 of the Gambling Act 2005 states that "gambling" means "gaming", "betting" or "participating in a lottery".
S.9 then defines betting as "
making or accepting a bet on—
(a)the outcome of a race, competition or other event or process,
(b)the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring, or
(c)whether anything is or is not true"
It is further made clear that "
A transaction that relates to the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring" will satisfy the definition of "betting".
S.42 of the Gambling Act then specifies that an individual will be guilty of a criminal offence if he cheats at gambling, or does anything which enables or assists another person to cheat at gambling.
So then, if one attempts to do something which unfairly influences something which can be described in the manner above, they will be guilty of the offence of cheating.
Now, significantly, of course, Amir and Co were convicted of
conspiracy to cheat, not cheating itself. Generally speaking, a person will be guilty of conspiring to commit a crime if, acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for commission of the crime he: purposely engages in conduct which would constitute the crime if the attendant circumstances were as he believes them to be. On 19th August Mazhir Mahmood, Mazhar Majeed and Salman Butt met at a restaurant in London, exchanged £10,000 for the delivery of two no balls,
and agreed that on the next day information would be given about a bracket on which a bet could be made on the day after. This clearly evidences the intention of Amir and co to cheat. You have mentioned several times that the fact that in your opinion conspiracy to cheat at gambling has a lot to do with whether the no balls in question could
actually have resulted in cheating at gambling, but I am afraid the law takes an entirely different view of things. The fact that arguably no cheating at gambling
could have occurred is completely irrelevant. Amir and co clearly intended to cheat and break the law, and that is all that is required in order to constitute the offence. Impossibility is no defence to conspiracy where the conditions creating said impossibility are unknown to the actor. His conviction is absolutely sound as a pound, and the renowned legal eagle Michael Atherton wading in with his trite comments are totally unhelpful.