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First page of House Report No. 3111, 81st Congress, 2d Session: Transportation of Gambling Devices, September 19, 1950, conference report to accompany S. 3357, with the names of the House and Senate managers
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H. Rept. 81-3111, Transportation of Gambling Devices: conference report on S. 3357 (19 September 1950)

The House-Senate conference report on the bill that became the Johnson Act of 2 January 1951: the Senate accepted all eight House amendments, among them a narrower definition of "gambling device" and a way for a State to exempt itself.

Date
1950-09-19
Kind
case-file
Source
GovInfo, United States Congressional Serial Set
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Docket
H. Rept. No. 3111, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. (1950)
Rights
A report of the United States House of Representatives, a work of the United States Congress, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105.

House Report No. 3111, 81st Congress, 2d Session, “Transportation of Gambling Devices,” was ordered printed on September 19, 1950. Representative Dwight L. Rogers of Florida submitted it for the conference committee on S. 3357, a bill “to prohibit transportation of gambling devices in interstate and foreign commerce.” The managers for the Senate included Ed C. Johnson and Ernest McFarland.

The statement of the House managers explains the eight House amendments that the Senate accepted. The first substituted “a new and more restrictive definition of ‘gambling device’” and a new section 2 “which permitted any State” to exempt itself from the ban on shipment into it. Others made the Attorney General, in place of the Collector of Internal Revenue, the official with whom makers and dealers must register; replaced the Territories with the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States; and made the penalties uniform. “The House conferees rejected two amendments proposed by the Senate conferees,” one on federal enclaves and one on shipping machines out of an exempt State for repairs, as “incompatible with the objectives of this legislation.”

The bill was enacted as the Johnson Act, 64 Stat. 1134, filed in the Laws section. Its companion on racing information, S. 3358, did not pass in 1950; the Wire Act followed in 1961.

itemJohnson Act (gambling devices): 64 Stat. 1134-1135 (Chapter 1194, Public Law 906), 2 January 1951"An Act To prohibit transportation of gambling devices in interstate and foreign commerce." It barred knowingly shipping slot machines and similar devices into a State unless that State had exempted itself by law, and required makers and dealers to register with the Attorney General.itemUnited States v. Five Gambling Devices, 346 U.S. 441 (1953)Supreme Court decision of 7 December 1953 affirming the dismissal of two dealer indictments and a forfeiture libel under the gambling-device act of 2 January 1951, because the Act lacked the explicitness to sustain the Government's pleadings.itemAttorney General J. Howard McGrath, address on the gambling-device act and the wire service, Highland Park, Illinois (10 August 1951)Prepared for the first annual meeting of the National Association of County and Prosecuting Attorneys: McGrath reported 126 registered manufacturers and dealers under the gambling-device law and called the wire service "the lifeblood of nationwide, illegal bookmaking activities."itemS. Rept. 81-1752 on Continental Press, as quoted in Kefauver Part 2, pp. 9-10 (1950)FCC chairman Wayne Coy read pages 15 and 16 of the Senate Commerce Committee's report on S. 3358 into the Kefauver record: it calls Continental the successor to the Annenberg wire service and finds that it has "a near monopoly in the transmission of racing news."