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Lottery History
Lottery, or lotto, history dates back easily as far as 1530, with "La Lotto de Firenza" as the Italians referred to it. It was actually a very similar game to that we play today. Good citizens bought tickets, and prizes were allocated according to a percentage of the money taken. The state then used it's share for building schools or repairing roads.
So popular was the prospect of winning big chunks of money (or perhaps it was the fun way of paying some taxes..!?), that the game rapidly spread across Europe.
Queen Elizabeth I established the first English state lottery with prizes ranging from cash to ornate tapestries. Just 400,000 tickets were available for sale - and no televised draw.
When settlers traveled from Europe to the Americas they took some of the fun with them, and games soon started in the new countries. King James I of England actually created a lottery in London to aid Jamestwon, Virginia - the first British colony in America. Lottery history is always a curious thing, and it is intriguing to note that Anglican churches held two of the three winning tickets in the very first draw! What better way to refurbish the vestry than by hitting the jackpot..!
The title of oldest lottery still running goes to the Netherlands - starting in 1726.
For more than 300 years, lotteries have played a significant role in American history. From 1612 to 1621, a lottery at Jamestown provided colonists with about 8,000 pounds a year, which helped them pay for passage for many of the new settlers. In the 1790s, a lottery subsidized state and private in Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and New York. For another century, lottery supported road construction, bridges, railroads, and schools. Lotteries helped the poor, elderly, and destitute.
The legal games were one thing of course - but illegal lotteries were quite another. Corruption in private run lotteries became widespread, and Governments were unable to regulate them effectively. New York was first in the 1820s, but by 1878 all US states except Louisiana had prohibited lotteries. Louisiana survived until 1905 when the US Supreme Court reinforced police powers to control gambling.
Not until 1964 did New Hampshire create the first state lottery in lottery history - tied to horse races to sidestep the anti-lottery laws! It was followed by New York 3 years later, and from there it snowballed with virtually every US state and most countries in Europe and indeed across the world now running their own lottery.
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