contract-law is-x-legal gambling prostitution
Can you bet sexual acts?
<p>I'm pretty sure you cannot make a bet and have the outcome one or way another be a sexual favor. But why would this be illegal?</p>

<p>This would be entirely dependant on the jurisdiction.</p>
<p>The things that would need to be legal to make this transaction legal are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is the sexual act legal?</li>
<li>Is gambling legal?</li>
<li>Ongoing consent by both parties</li>
</ol>
<p>To make this an enforceable contract, in addition you would need:</p>
<ol>
<li>Sexual acts to be valuable consideration, basically, is prostitution legal?</li>
<li>The fundamentals of a binding contract: intention, legality of objects etc.</li>
</ol>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-united-states-tooltip-container">united-states</a></p>
<p>In most jurisdictions in the U.S. this would be unenforceable, and possible even a crime. (Many non-U.S. jurisdiction are more legally tolerant of both gambling and of prostitution, and I'm not familiar with those jurisdictions at a sufficient level of detail to answer regarding those places.)</p>
<p>First, most U.S. jurisdictions have a common law rule that contracts with meretricious consideration (i.e. where sex is one of the things that someone is contributing economically to the contract) are void as contrary to public policy.</p>
<p>Second, this would be considered prostitution in most jurisdictions as it is defined under local laws. Prostitution is illegal in essentially every jurisdiction but a few counties in Nevada and is regulated there in a way that wouldn't allow this kind of contract in those jurisdictions. The illegality of prostitution would make the contract unenforceable, and depending upon the definition of prostitution in a particular jurisdiction would also make it a crime.</p>
<p>Third, most U.S. jurisdictions prohibit gambling generally, subject to only narrow exceptions, most of which are regulated, and this would not fall within any of the common exceptions to the rule prohibiting gambling. Gambling is usually a misdemeanor or low level felony depending upon the nature of one's involvement.</p>
<p>This said, however, between consenting adults who have or are open to having a sexual relationship with each other, who would never consider seeking to enforce their bet legally, one of the stronger defenses legally would be to argue that it isn't what it superficially seems to be.</p>
<p>In other words, one could argue that this was not really a true &quot;contract&quot; or transactional sex, and was also not bona fide gambling, that would actually be enforced or considered binding by the participants, but was instead merely a form of role playing or informal adult play that isn't a genuine gambling or transactional sex transaction, even though it mimics the form of such an arrangement. If the implicit assumptions of the parties in context was that someone losing a bet could decline to perform the sexual act without consequences despite the seeming obligation arising from losing the bet, this defense could prevail. And, as a practical matter, this kind of activity would not be likely to be characterized as criminal conduct by people with knowledge of it, reported to authorities, prosecuted, or enforced in a civil lawsuit, if it was just silliness between friends as opposed to genuine commercial prostitution in bet form or genuine gambling with hard stakes that would be taken seriously and enforced extra-legally.</p>
