For a brief time in 1894, Port Credit was a gambler's paradise. While off-track betting was illegal until 1989, that didn't stop James Giles from challenging the law.

Buffalo's James Giles garnered headlines in 1892 for running a betting house in Toronto. Bankrolled by an unidentified company with deep pockets, the den was assisted by someone at a rail company. As operators of the telegraph system, they received a commission for connecting the Canadian gamblers to the American racetracks. Giles spent two months in jail for operating this betting house, doing hard labour.

Jail time wasn't enough to quash his ambitions, however. At some point in 1894 Giles set up a large tent on a lot near the Port Credit train station, “beyond the jurisdiction of the Toronto authorities.”

He paid for 150 gamblers’ train rides to Port Credit on opening day, June 1894. The scheme was public enough that The Globe newspaper attended, deeming it “not very lively.”

Locals created a petition, worrying that the use of advanced technology to arrange bets, in this case the telegraph, over international lines wouldn't be covered under Ontario's existing gambling laws.

Giles was charged.

A trial was scheduled for mid-July. The case was referred up to the County court in Brampton.

Would Canadian law prevent gambling on foreign races? Giles' barrister, Toronto's William George Murdoch, openly told the Toronto media that he hoped the Crown would chicken if an appeal was ever filed at Osgoode Hall. Murdoch speculated they would drop the case entirely. They didn't. In November 1894, Giles was found guilty of operating a betting house.

Murdoch moved to appeal the case on behalf of his client. The appeal was heard in Toronto at the highest provincial court. Chancellor Sir John Alexander Boyd and two justices unanimously decided that the law was valid, “whether the race is run in Canada or elsewhere, so long as the disorderly place called a betting-house is opened and maintained in Ontario.”