Pol·i·cy, n.
 1. A ticket or warrant for money in the public funds.
 2. The writing or instrument in which a contract of insurance is embodied; an instrument in writing containing the terms and conditions on which one party engages to indemnify another against loss arising from certain hazards, perils, or risks to which his person or property may be exposed. See Insurance.
 3. A method of gambling by betting as to what numbers will be drawn in a lottery; as, to play policy.
 Interest policy, a policy that shows by its form that the assured has a real, substantial interest in the matter insured.
 Open policy, one in which the value of the goods or property insured is not mentioned.
 Policy book, a book to contain a record of insurance policies.
 Policy holder, one to whom an insurance policy has been granted.
 Policy shop, a gambling place where one may bet on the numbers which will be drawn in lotteries.
 Valued policy, one in which the value of the goods, property, or interest insured is specified.
 Wager policy, a policy that shows on the face of it that the contract it embodies is a pretended insurance, founded on an ideal risk, where the insured has no interest in anything insured.
 ◄ ►
 Wa·ger·ing, a. Hazarding; pertaining to the act of one who wagers.
 Wagering policy. Com. See Wager policy, under Policy.
 ◄ ►
 wa·ger n.
 1. Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge.
    Besides these plates for horse races, the wagers may be as the persons please.   --Sir W. Temple.
    If any atheist can stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of credulity.   --Bentley.
 2. Law A contract by which two parties or more agree that a certain sum of money, or other thing, shall be paid or delivered to one of them, on the happening or not happening of an uncertain event.
 Note: ☞ At common law a wager is considered as a legal contract which the courts must enforce unless it be on a subject contrary to public policy, or immoral, or tending to the detriment of the public, or affecting the interest, feelings, or character of a third person. In many of the United States an action can not be sustained upon any wager or bet.
 3. That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.
 Wager of battel, or Wager of battle O. Eng. Law, the giving of gage, or pledge, for trying a cause by single combat, formerly allowed in military, criminal, and civil causes. In writs of right, where the trial was by champions, the tenant produced his champion, who, by throwing down his glove as a gage, thus waged, or stipulated, battle with the champion of the demandant, who, by taking up the glove, accepted the challenge. The wager of battel, which has been long in disuse, was abolished in England in 1819, by a statute passed in consequence of a defendant's having waged his battle in a case which arose about that period.  See Battel.
 Wager of law Law, the giving of gage, or sureties, by a defendant in an action of debt, that at a certain day assigned he would take a law, or oath, in open court, that he did not owe the debt, and at the same time bring with him eleven neighbors (called compurgators), who should avow upon their oaths that they believed in their consciences that he spoke the truth.
 Wager policy. Insurance Law See under Policy.
 Wagering contract or gambling contract. A contract which is of the nature of wager.  Contracts of this nature include various common forms of valid commercial contracts, as contracts of insurance, contracts dealing in futures, options, etc.  Other wagering contracts and bets are now generally made illegal by statute against betting and gambling, and wagering has in many cases been made a criminal offence.