Chap. 344.—An ACT to prohibit bucketing, bucket-shopping, and to abolish bucket
shops; to declare the same unlawful and to prescribe the penalties therefor.

Approved March 14, 1908.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That the fol-
lowing words and phrases used in this act shall, unless a different mean-
ing is plainly required by the context, have the following meanings:

“Person” shall mean an individual, partnership, corporation or asso-
ciation, whether acting in his or their own right, or as the officer, agent,
servant, correspondent or representative of another. .

“Contract” shall mean any agreement, trade or transaction.

“Securities” shall mean all evidences of debt or property and options
for the purchase and sale thereof, shares in any corporation or associa-
tion, bonds, coupons, scrip, rights, choses in action and other evidences
of debt or property and options for the purchase or sale thereof.

“Commodities” shall mean anything movable that is bought and
sold.

“Bucket shop” shall mean any room, office, store, building or other
place where any contract prohibited by this act is made, or offered to be
made.
“Keeper” shall mean any person owning, keeping, managing, operat-
ing or promoting a bucket shop, or assisting so to do.

“Bucketing” or “bucket-shopping” shall mean:

(a) The making of or offering to make any contract respecting the
purchase or sale, either upon credit or upon margin, of any securities
or commodities wherein both parties thereto intend, or such keeper in-
tends, that such contract shall be, or may be, terminated, closed or
settled according to, or upon the basis of, the public market quotations
of prices made on any board of trade or exchange, upon which said
securities or commodities are dealt in, and without a bona fide purchase
or sale of the same; or

(b) The making of, or offering to make any contract respecting the
purchase or sale, either upon credit or upon margin, of any securities or
commodities, wherein both parties intend, or such keeper intends, that
such contract shall be, or may be, deemed terminated, closed or settled,
when such public market quotations of prices for the securities or com-
modities named in such contract shall reach a certain figure without a
bona fide purchase or sale of the same; or

(c) The making of, or offering to make any contract respecting the
purchase or sale, either upon credit or upon margin, of any securities
or commodities, wherein both parties do not intend, or such keeper does
not intend, the actual or bona fide receipt or delivery of such securities
or commodities, but do intend, or such keeper does intend, a settlement
of such contract based upon the differences in such public market quota-
tions of price at which said securities or commodities are, or are asserted
to be, bought and sold.

§2. Any person who makes, or offers to make any contract defined
in the preceding section, or who is the keeper of any bucket shop, shall,
upon conviction therefor, be punished by a fine not exceeding one thou-
sand dollars, or by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year.
Any person who shall be convicted of a second offense shall be punished
by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not more than five years. The
continuing of the keeping of a bucket shop, by any person, after the
first conviction therefor, shall be deemed a second offense under this act.

§3. Any person who shall communicate, receive, exhibit or display
in any manner any statement of quotations of prices of any securities or
commodities with an intent to make, or offer to make, or to aid in
making, or offering to make, any contract prohibited by this act,
upon conviction thereof shall be subject to the penalties provided in the
preceding section.

§4. Every person shall furnish, upon demand, to any customer
or principal for whom such person has executed any order for the
actual purchase or sale of any securities or commodities, either for
immediate or future delivery, a written statement containing the names
of the persons from whom such property was bought, or to whom it
has been sold, as the fact may be, the time when, place where and the
price at which time the same was either bought or sold; and if such
person shall refuse or neglect to furnish such statement within twenty-
four hours after such demand, such refusal or neglect shall be prima
facie evidence that such purchase or sale was bucketing or bucket-
shoping within the terms of this act.
§5. That no person committing any of the acts, or things prohibited
in this act, shall be allowed to plead in defense thereof the payment of
any license or other tax to the State or to any county or municipality
thereof; nor shall the payment of any such license or tax in any wise
operate to relieve such offender from the penalties imposed by this
act.

§6. That all laws. and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions
of this act be, and the same are, hereby repealed.

§?7. That this act shall go into effect from and after July one, nine-
teen hundred and eight.