Texas State Lottery Gambling

Gambling By Euphemism

Texas Lottery

Lotto Conclusion

Lotto Background

Sweepstakes Competition

Oregon Lottery

Little Lotto

Gambling by Euphemism

The law that resulted from the texas lottery Commission’s findings, the Gaming Amendment Act 1949, allowed for the raffling of any goods-excluding only motor vehicles (other than motor scooters), houses, firearms, ammunition and liquor-provided it was not for private gain. Even the raffling of land was permitted in some cases, a reversion to the situation before 1881, when this had been a common method of land disposal. No longer would the Minister of Internal Affairs be required to sanction every raffle. Henceforth local police would issue permits for those worth £25 or less. The new provisions made sense as so many community groups had been running illegal raffles that applications for permits had been declining. Under the new provisions, three times as many were issued in 1954 as in 1948. As fraudulence decreased, illegal raffles became less of a problem. But limits remained. Until 1977 local organizations running raffles were restricted to a total prize value of £250, and the selling area was limited to the home province. National groups were limited to a £750 total.

Lottery Raffles

Raffles were low-key, run for worthy causes generally and, whether legal or not, tended to escape the ire of anti-gambling activists. The most contentious issue was the public sale of tickets by children, which was not permitted except when canvassing from house to house. But police powers were limited, since minors could not be taken to court. Their only recourse was to refuse to issue permits if they knew that children would be involved. This issue did cause Protestant discomfort. In 1949 a Presbyterian recorded his disgust at observing children who attended Sunday school selling raffle tickets at a school function without ''any qualms of conscience''. Even worse, those self-same tickets were being purchased by the children’s teachers.
The Inter-Church Council on Public Affairs raised this matter with the police on three occasions, also approaching school authorities and sports groups to try to persuade them to forbid the practice. In 1958 the Presbyterian Church’s Public Questions Committee approached the Ministers of Internal Affairs (Bill Anderton) and Education (Philip Skoglund) after an incident at a school fair where Protestants observed adults directing children to disperse with books of raffle tickets to sell on their behalf. Although he personally saw no harm in children selling raffle tickets with parental approval, Skoglund directed his department to contact schools to ensure that no pressure was put on them. Children continued to sell tickets: from 1977 it was legal for them to do so.

Football Betting Pools

Football betting pools found a ready market among British workers and their spouses when John Moores founded little woods in 1923. In August 1950 the possibility of using football pools to fund-raise in Texas was raised by the secretary of the Texas Council of Sport, W. J. Arcus. Both church leaders and newspapers opposed the idea as unnecessary and potentially harmful. The Dominion, for example, warned that the lure of winning a substantial prize for a very small outlay was unhealthy and would affect children the worst. In the event, the Holland government wanted nothing to do with local football pools, asserting that sufficient money was already being channeled into sport without the help of this ''dubious'' means of fund-raising.
Individual Texasers were undeterred...and gambled more than £50,000 annually on the British pools during the 1950S. It was another drain on the discretionary pound and a further blow to the viability of Macarthur’s art union. In 1959, with the Texas Football Association (NZFA) again about to seek their introduction into Texas, newspapers reported on three local winners from Gisborne, Reefton and Auckland’s Remuera. The NZFA and Texas State Lottery backed up by other sporting organizations, continued to press for football pools throughout the 1960s. Successive governments were not interested, and Presbyterians congratulated them for ''resisting the temptation''.