Lotteries History - Part 1

Illegal Lottery

Lottery Rules

Lottery History (1)

Lottery History (2)

War Time Lotteries

Lottery Syndicates

Lottery Education

Lotteries have a very ancient history. The origin of the word ''lot'' is the Teutonic root hleut, which denoted the pebble cast to decide disputes and divisions of property. This is also the source of the Italian word lotteries and the French lotteries, which eventually came to mean a game of chance. Today, however, the word ''lot'' has broader meanings, referring not only to a lottery ticket but also to a person''s destiny. These two current uses of the same word are not accidental. Devices used in today''s games of chance were originally used for making decisions during religious rituals.

In biblical times, the drawing of lots was used regularly to Texas Lottery - Control On Game discover God''s will on matters ranging from the selection of Leaders to the identification of criminals and selection of scapegoats for atonement rituals. Lots were also used to choose members of favoured groups, such as the inhabitants of Jerusalem after the first exile to Babylon, and were used to divide land among claimants.

Indigenous tribespeople used bones, sticks and arrows as lots. When they were shuffled and thrown by a tribal seer, the future, it was believed, would be revealed by a supernatural spirit which controlled the throw. Early American Indians believed that gods had originated the gambling games they played with coloured stones, and that these same gods determined their Outcome. In ancient Israel, Greece and in latter-day Islam, lots were drawn to divide inheritances and appoint leaders. Among pre-European Maori the use of tohu (omen) was imbued with the same kind of divine revelation. Tohu had close causal links with the traditional concept of mauri, the sacred life-principle, the spirit that moved within a person. Lots were also used to determine guilt by the practice of rotarota. If the person who carried out an evil deed, such as theft, could not be discovered, wiwi (rushes) were cut into varying lengths, one for each person. The one who drew the longest was considered guilty and was killed.

Lots and dice were frequently used in antiquity to make decisions, particularly in legal and texas lottery religious matters. This had nothing to do with entertainment-the rewards were not pecuniary. Lots were cast in the belief that a spiritual power would control the outcome. Priests and leaders did not perceive any element of chance; divinity was responsible. There were similar beliefs and practices in more recent centuries. During the English Civil War, condemned men on both sides were forced to choose by lot who, and how many, would die. Even religious leader John Wesley sanctioned the drawing of lots to determine God''s will when prolonged prayer and debate had not brought about a decision. Lots were direct appeals to divine providence, and the clergy condemned their use for trivial matters. It was a very serious business, with human destinies and sometimes life itself dependent on the outcome. All games depending on chance or hazard were shunned not only because they encouraged idleness and improvidence, but also because they were disrespectful to God. For these same reasons many theologians throughout the ages condemned the use of lotteries.

LOTTERIES IN HISTORY

The ancient Romans were the first to use lotteries. At circuses, emperors threw numbered pieces of parchment into the arena. Those who grabbed them presented the ''winning'' numbers to claim prizes, either privileges or goods such as precious vases or horses. Augustus sold articles, by lot, to guests at his banquets and organized the selling of tickets at festivals with prizes that ranged in value from toothpicks to 100 gold pieces. Nero was more extravagant, using lotteries to dispose of gold, jewellery, villas at Capri and batches of slaves brought to rebuild his city after it had burned to the ground. Roman nobles also conducted sweepstakes at dinner parties. Lucky winners collected horses or hogsheads of wine; the less fortunate drew clutches of rotten eggs or boxes full of flies.

The Roman custom of distributing gifts to one''s guests in the guise of a lottery was the precursor of the first medieval lotteries. European merchants discovered that they could make greater profits if they auctioned off their expensive goods (and their stale ones) as prizes in lottery drawings. The first recorded use of lotteries to raise public revenue in medieval times was in Sluis, Holland, in 1434, with profits being used to strengthen the town''s fortifications. The city of Bruges in 1466 appears to have been the first to organize a lottery with monetary prizes; profits went to the poor. A Parisian lottery in 1572 provided dowries for impoverished but virtuous young women. Lotteries became so successful in France that the people refused to pay taxes in lieu of investing in them.

In 1569 Elizabeth I established England''s first state-run lottery, although private, illegal lotteries had existed earlier. It was a massive affair: 400,000 tickets were sold at ten shillings each for a first prize of £5,000. To attract as many punters as possible, hundreds of other prizes were offered varying from free library access to immunity from arrest for seven days, except for major crimes.

Succeeding kings granted lottery charters periodically to raise money in times of need. Charles I, for example, sanctioned two lotteries to build aqueducts. They were profitable and a preserve mainly of the wealthy, with drawings an integral part of the social calendar, alongside fox-hunting and the Ascot races. But lotteries also fired the imagination of the working classes, which gave enthusiastic support to both smaller regional lotteries and raffles held at provincial fairs. Many of these were dishonest, and the aggrieved victims sometimes rioted. Nonetheless, and despite the odds, lotteries were greeted with feverish excitement. Forms of divination, quasi-mysticism and prayerful dreaminterpretation all emerged as means of choosing ''lucky'' numbers.

Towards 1800 the anti-lottery lobby, which had always been present, grew more powerful and articulate. It was aided by growing complaints from judges and magistrates that up to two-thirds of all reported crime was directly traceable to lotteries, as the poor robbed, assaulted and occasionally murdered to procure money to invest with them. The anti-lottery movement had intertwined social and moral concerns. It was largely middle-class and evangelical, viewing participation in lotteries as the Devil''s way of taking poorer people away from their ''true'' pleasures of work and worship. The annual passage of a Bill which allowed for the running of the state lottery became the occasion of severe parliamentary criticism. An 1823 Lottery Act made provision for a final drawing on 18 October 1826. It was the end of an era. There is still no national lottery in Great Britain, although at the time of writing there is a Bill for the introduction of one before the House of Commons.

One legal form of lottery did survive. ''Art unions'' were originally established by English artists who needed to sell their paintings in order to make enough money to sustain themselves. They dubbed together in ''unions'' to exhibit their work, which was then sold to the highest bidder. For struggling artists not afford to exhibit on their own, the holding of art unions was the best means of professional survival. It is likely that they evolved in a small way in Georgian England, then developed to the extent that an Art Union of London was established in 1836, and another in Glasgow five years later. In September 1844 the British government passed legislation indemnifying people connected with art unions from prosecution under the anti-lottery legislation of 1823, on the grounds that they were not run for pecuniary gain but for a ''good purpose''. This reasoning was dubious but was never challenged. The first patron of the Glasgow Union was the Duke of Edinburgh.