Lottery ticket

“ What would you say to a fellow who should ask you to take tickets in a lottery where the chances were five thousand to one against you—or rather to take one ticket, and that at the price of all you were worth? ”

“ The ticket sellers often call out as they pass along the street the last two numbers on the tickets they have to sell, and if a man hears the number called which corresponds to the animal he dreamed about last night, he will consider it lucky and buy. There are also many shops where only lottery tickets are sold. No evil has more tenaciously and universally fastened upon the people than has the evil of gambling in lotteries. ”

“ Do not think that he was a profligate, my dear cousin Eunice, because he had bought a lottery ticket. Please to observe that to buy lottery tickets was represented to be as much the duty of all good citizens, as it was proved to be, eleven years ago, your duty to make Havelocks and to knit stockings. Samuel Cutts, in the outset, had bought his lottery ticket only "to encourage the others," and to do his honorable share in paying the war debt. ”

“ It is a regular thing for prominent business houses to make their monthly purchases of these lottery tickets; rich and poor, prince and beggar, alike invest, differing only in the amount; while most strangers, smothering their conscientious scruples, purchase a ticket, thus adding their mite to the general folly. We were told in Havana that one satisfaction in buying tickets in the national lottery there was, [Pg 137] that like the Louisiana Lottery it was honestly conducted. ”

“ With the growth of the habit, the number of agents has increased until now fully one hundred people, male and female, earn a comfortable subsistence by selling lottery tickets. It is not an uncommon thing for a lady to be solicited to buy a ticket on the street by well dressed women. There is a law prohibiting dealing in lottery tickets, and prescribing a penalty for their purchase as well as for their sale; but as the police are all regular purchasers, they are very lax in following out the provisions of the law. ”

“ When pickpockets find themselves in danger of capture, they very often resort to that device."
"Well," rejoined Puymirol, "at least there isn't the slightest vestige of a bank-note inside, as you can see for yourself. Nor are there any visiting-cards, nothing but papers, and not many of them. In this compartment there are some lottery tickets, just look: The Tunisian Lottery, the Amiens Lottery, and the Lottery of the Decorative Art Society. And here on the other side there are some letters."
"Letters!" repeated George. "So much the better. ”

“ The sixteenth of a lottery ticket, which is the smallest share that can be purchased, has not for many years been sold under thirty shillings, a sum much too large for a person who buys old shoes 'translated,' and even for the 'translator' himself, to advance; we may therefore safely conclude that the purchase of tickets is not the mode of gambling by which Crispin's customers are brought to distress.
A great number of foreign lotteries still exist in vigorous operation. Some are supported by the state, and others are only authorized; most of them are flourishing. ”

“ Had No. 623 been replaced in the wheel, and been fortunate enough again to draw a large prize, it would have been very difficult to sustain its title to that prize. This first objection to the conduct of the managers is not, we think, supported.
More difficulty is presented by the last. The mistake in the number of tickets placed in the wheel is undoubtedly an irregularity; but the effect it ought to have on the lottery is not so obvious. The ticket not put in the wheel was a blank; and, consequently, the omission did not diminish the chances of the adventurers. ”

“ The accident of losing fifteen games is no more to be imputed to bad luck than the winning, with one single ticket, the highest prize in a lottery of 32,768 tickets is to be imputed to good luck, since the chances in both cases are perfectly equal. ”

“ SIR ASHTON LEVER’s Lottery Tickets are now on sale at Leicester-house, every day (Sundays excepted) from Nine in the morning till Six in the evening, at One Guinea each; and as each ticket will admit four persons, either together or separately, to view the Museum, no one will hereafter be admitted but by the Lottery Tickets, excepting those who have already annual admission.
This collection is allowed to be infinitely superior to any of the kind in Europe. ”

“ The last drawn number would find no corresponding ticket in the other wheel; but the chance of each to be the last drawn was precisely the same as the chance of each would have been to draw the blank, which ought to have been in the wheel. Had the lottery been completed without attempting to correct the error by throwing in another blank, the owner of the last drawn ticket would have been in the same situation as if the blank had remained in the wheel ”

“ For on another ground we are of opinion that there was no evidence of an offense within the meaning of the act of 1895. The assumption has been that the slips carried from Kentucky to Ohio were papers purporting to be or represent a ticket or interest in a lottery. But in our opinion these papers did not purport to be or do either. A ticket, of course, is a thing which is the holder's means of making good his rights. The essence of it is that it is in the hands of the other party to the contract with the lottery as a document of title. ”

“ Said circular does not concern or relate to a lottery, so-called 'gift concert,' or similar enterprise offering prizes depending upon lot or chance, or concerning schemes devised for obtaining money or property under false pretenses, nor does the same concern or relate to a lottery or similar scheme, or a lottery ticket, or part thereof. ”

“ It is customary also for the regularly organized business establishments to patronize the lottery with never-failing regularity, charging a certain monthly sum to expense account, but the money is nevertheless paid out for lottery tickets. ”

“ I stake (or play as they call it) what I can upon my numbers, and buy what numbers I please. The amount I play, I pay at the lottery office, where I purchase the ticket; and it is stated on the ticket itself.
Every lottery office keeps a printed book, an Universal Lottery Diviner, where every possible accident and circumstance is provided for, and has a number against it. For instance, let us stake two carlini—about sevenpence. On our way to the lottery office, we run against a black man. When we get there, we say gravely, "The Diviner." ”

“ Everyone “plays the lottery.” The young lady on her way home from church stops to buy a ticket, or at least a “piece” of ticket, as innocently as she would a ribbon; school children enter their classrooms loudly discussing the merits of the various numbers they have chosen; the number of persons losing sleep, or going to sleep on the job, figuring up what they will do with the hundred thousand reis they are always sure of winning is beyond computation. ”

“ The prizes were payable in the same manner: the first drawn ticket had 500l.; the last 1000l. besides the general chance; 35,000l. per annum was payable weekly from the Exchequer to the paymaster for the discharge of the principal and interest, and the whole funds of the civil list were chargeable for thirty-two years for 35,000l. per annum. [442]
One of the schemes which preceded the bubbles of 1720 was an insurance-office for lottery tickets, opened at Mercers-hall ”

“ In the lottery, too, the risks were generally so small that the ticket-buyer alone suffered; whereas now, whole families are often involved in financial ruin, if not in disgrace, by the operations of a father, brother, or near relative. ”

“ The Italian’s eminently practical nature makes him utilize his dreams in “playing the lotto,” as the buying of lottery tickets is called. To dream of certain things indicates that you will be lucky and should play. The choice of the number is the chief preoccupation of the hardened lottery player. It is decided by the oddest chance,—the number on a banknote which one has lost and found again, the number of a cab which has brought one home from some delightful festivity. The number must always be associated with something lucky. ”

“ Lottery tickets are everywhere, in every window, and urchins of all sizes and genders moon about the streets selling little twentieths [214] to such as haven’t the ten dollars to buy a whole one. Guests at dinner play cards for lottery tickets paid for by the losers, Englishmen bet lottery tickets that the Esmeralda won’t bring the mail from home, and natives dream of lucky numbers, to go searching all over town for the pieces that bear the figures of their visions. ”

“ This number had been "sold by them to several young Gentlemen who purchased 30 Tickets;" and they also announced that the drawing was "suspended until the next Tuesday, when the [Pg 55] first drawn ticket will be the highest prize, Twenty thousand Dollars;" and besides this, that "there are remaining to be drawn four prizes of $1,000 each, and four prizes of $500 each."
It should be noticed that there was, even in its most flourishing days, a difference of opinion among individuals in regard to the morality of the lottery, as men must differ on all subjects ”

“ It was also demonstrated in the clearest manner, that to have an even chance for any prize a person must have seven tickets; that with only one ticket it was six to one; and ninety-nine to one that the prize, if it came, would not be above fifty pounds, and no less than thirty-five thousand to one that the owner of a single ticket would not obtain one of the greatest prizes.—Yet, notwithstanding these and other precautions, people still suffered themselves to be deluded, and the monied men arrogantly triumphed. [464]
A Lottery Job in Ireland. ”

“ The proprietor of the lottery pays the state annually forty thousand dollars for his privilege. The tickets are one real, or twelve and a half cents each. They who cannot buy ten, twenty, or a hundred, can buy one. In this lies the secret of its success and mischief. It finds a dupe wherever it can find a fool with a penny. The venders of these lottery tickets hawk them through every street and lane, and from the stepstones of every church in Lima. ”

“ The above is surely a just account of the nature and principles of a Lottery; yet it does not destroy the [Pg 61] fact, that, distributed as the tickets always are among thousands, there must be some gainers, and that, in spite of mathematics, there is a lucky number, which must draw the capital prize in the Plymouth Beach Lottery (without any deduction) of 12000 dollars. Both the Historical Dictionary and Lottery Tickets may be had at Cushing & Appleton's old stand, one door west of Central Building;—where BANK BILLS are exchanged. ”

“ But nothing herein contained shall authorize the sale of any spirits, wines, or malt liquors to be drank on the premises.
Lottery-ticket dealers. Six. Lottery-ticket dealers shall pay one hundred dollars for each license. Every person, association, firm, or corporation who shall make, sell, or offer to sell lottery tickets, or fractional parts thereof, or any token, certificate, or device representing,Post, p. ”

“ The chief features of a lottery are “procuring through lot or chance, by the investment of a sum of money or something of value, some greater amount of money or thing of greater value. When such are the chief features of any scheme whatever it may be christened, or however it may be guarded or concealed by cunningly devised conditions or screens, it is under the law a lottery” (U.S. v. Wallace, 58, Fed. Rep. 942) . In 1894 and 1897 Congress forbade the importation of lottery tickets or advertisements into the United States. ”

“ The stores are open as usual, the same cries are heard in the streets, and the lottery tickets are vended as ever at each corner. The individual who devotes himself to this business rends the air with his cries of temptation to the passing throng, each one of whom he earnestly assures is certain to realize enormous pecuniary returns by the smallest investment, in tickets, or portions of tickets, which he holds in sheets, while he brandishes a huge pair of scissors, ready to cut in any desired proportion. ”

“ The baron’s representatives, under these circumstance, published an advertisement, offering a reward of £1000 to any person who might have found the said ticket, and would deliver it up. Payment was stopped. [238] A wholesale linen draper in Cornhill (who had ordered his broker to buy him ten tickets, which he deposited in a chest) , on copying the numbers for the purpose of examining them, made a mistake in one figure, and called it 14,168 instead of 14,068, which was the £20,000 prize. The lottery being finished, he sent his tickets to be examined and marked. ”

“ Today you approach a gambling-hell by this door, tomorrow the inner passages of the house are mysteriously changed, and it is impossible to track them without being frequently misled; meanwhile the alarm is sounded throughout the building, and very speedily every trace of guilt has disappeared. The lottery is another popular temptation in the quarter. Most of the very numerous wash-houses are said to be private agencies for the sale of lottery tickets. ”

“ The first witness examined was the lottery office keeper, he said, that about a fortnight ago, the prisoner insured No. 21,481 six times over for the subsequent day of drawing; that the conversation he had with the prisoner at that time, and the seeming positiveness there appeared in the latter, that the ticket would come up, caused him to enquire at other lottery offices, when he found the same number insured, in the prisoner’s name, at all the principal offices about the ‘Change; that the ticket was drawn the first hour of drawing the subsequent day. ”