Since its infancy, California has adopted English common law including the common law’s rule refusing to allow courts to enforce gambling debts. This decision holds that the same rule still bars suits on gambling debts from proceeding in California courts even though the state has legalized certain types of gambling. The policy prohibiting judicial enforcement of gambling debts is independent of the policy prohibiting gambling. Barring enforcement of gambling debts discourages borrowing to gamble which can ruin families.