## Facts

- Federal agents investigated alleged bookmaking activity in the Shreveport–Bossier City area during the 1973 football season and executed coordinated raids near season’s end.
- A federal indictment charged Henry Floyd “Red” Box and others with operating an illegal gambling business, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1955, on a single-enterprise theory involving multiple bookmakers.
- Box owned a Shreveport billiard parlor that a known bookmaker visited on several Tuesdays that investigators regarded as “payoff day.”
- Telephone toll records showed calls between Box’s home and business lines and several bookmakers, including one in Baton Rouge.
- Agents seized gambling records and betting slips; some bore Box’s name and reflected wagers on favorable terms.
- Witnesses described Box as a heavy bettor who sometimes accepted lay-off bets from bookmakers seeking to hedge risk; such acceptance occurred only occasionally and not with dependable regularity.
- The government did not show that Box solicited bets from the public, maintained a customer base, distributed a betting line, or provided line information to others.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Box “conduct[ed], finance[d], manage[d], supervise[d], direct[ed], or own[ed]” an illegal gambling business under 18 U.S.C. § 1955, rather than merely betting heavily and occasionally receiving lay-off bets.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed Box’s conviction and remanded with instructions to enter a judgment of acquittal.
- Applying sufficiency review favoring the government, the court held the evidence did not support a finding that Box was a bookmaker or an operator/manager of an illegal gambling business.
- The court concluded that the circumstantial evidence did not exclude the reasonable hypothesis that Box was only a bettor.
- The court rejected the government’s contention that receiving lay-off bets, without more, established that Box conducted or participated in the gambling business.

## Legal Principles

- 18 U.S.C. § 1955 reaches persons who “conduct, finance, manage, supervise, direct, or own” an illegal gambling business; it does not criminalize mere betting activity.
- To prove participation under § 1955, the government must present evidence of operational involvement in the gambling business (e.g., running a book, taking bets from customers, disseminating the line, or otherwise acting in a management/operation role).
- A lay-off bet is defined by the hedging purpose of the bookmaker who places it; a recipient of a lay-off bet is not necessarily a bookmaker or business operator.
- When the evidence at trial is legally insufficient to support conviction, the proper remedy is reversal with entry of a judgment of acquittal.

## Conclusion

Because the proof showed, at most, that Box was a heavy bettor who occasionally received lay-off wagers—and did not show that he operated, managed, or otherwise conducted an illegal gambling business within § 1955—the conviction was reversed and the case was remanded for entry of an acquittal.


United States v. Box, 530 F.2d 1258 (5th Cir. 1976)