Legal Definitions - welshing

Welshing refers to the act of failing to honor a financial obligation, particularly a gambling debt. More specifically, in a legal context, it describes a form of theft where an individual accepts money from another person, often as a deposit for a future payment based on an event's outcome, but at the time of receiving the money, they already intend to defraud the depositor by keeping the funds and disappearing.

Here are some examples to illustrate the concept of welshing:

• Example 1 (Evading a Gambling Debt):

  A group of friends places a friendly wager on the outcome of a major sports championship. When one friend's chosen team loses, they refuse to pay the agreed-upon amount to the winner, claiming they "forgot" about the bet or that it "didn't really count."

  This scenario illustrates the informal sense of welshing, where someone evades a promised payment, especially in a casual gambling context, despite a clear agreement.

• Example 2 (Larceny with Intent to Defraud - Gambling Context):

  A person sets up a temporary booth at a local fair, advertising themselves as a bookmaker taking cash bets on a series of novelty races. They collect significant deposits from numerous participants, promising large payouts for correct predictions. However, from the moment they started collecting money, they had no intention of paying anyone; their plan was to close the booth early and leave town with all the collected funds, regardless of the race results.

  This demonstrates the more serious legal definition of welshing. The individual committed larceny because they accepted money with a pre-existing intent to defraud the bettors by absconding with their deposits rather than honoring any potential winnings based on the event's outcome.

• Example 3 (Larceny with Intent to Defraud - Investment Context):

  An online platform claims to offer a unique investment opportunity where users deposit funds, and the platform promises to return a significantly larger sum if a specific market indicator (the "event") reaches a certain threshold by a set date. The platform's creators, however, designed the system from the beginning with no actual investment strategy. Their intent was to collect deposits from as many users as possible and then shut down the platform, disappearing with all the funds, regardless of how the market indicator performed.

  This example illustrates welshing as a form of larceny. The platform creators accepted deposits with the explicit promise of a larger return contingent on an "event's outcome" (the market indicator). Crucially, their pre-existing intent to defraud by absconding with the money, rather than honoring any payouts, constitutes welshing.