The Ancient Game of Chance

Lotteries have been mentioned in the histories of ancient civilizations throughout the world. The Iliad, Homer’s epic tale of the Trojan Wars, refers to the drawing of lots from Agamemnon’s helmet to decide who would fight Hector.

One of the first recorded lotteries was in China during the Han Dynasty (between 205 and 187 BC). The 2nd millennium BC book “The Book of Songs,” references a game of chance involving “the drawing of lots” that was used to fund one of the most famous of all Chinese projects, the Great Wall.

Western Lotteries

The first Western lottery was held during the Roman Empire when Augustus Caesar authorized one to raise money for the maintenance of Rome. The earliest known public lottery was in 1434 in the Dutch town of Sluis. Up until now, the lottery winner would be awarded prizes of a greater or equal value than wagered; it wasn’t until around this time lotteries began giving cash prizes.

The lottery (which in Italian means a predestination or unchangeable fate) got its name in 1515, when during an election in Genoa, Italy, the city used numbers instead of names to determine the winner, leaving the selection of the office holder up to fate.

Lotteries also became popular in France. In 1539 King Francis I ran a lottery to get his treasury out of debt, and in 1753, at the legendary Casanova’s urging, Louis XV started the Loterie Royale (which eventually became the Loterie National) a Keno-style game where the players picked one to five numbers between 1 and 90.

The first English lottery was authorized in 1566 by Queen Elizabeth. Chartered for “the reparation of the havens and strength of the Realme, and towards such other publique good works,” the lottery eventually sold 400,000 tickets before being drawn in 1659, with china, tapestries, and cash as prizes.

The British government ran lotteries until 1826. Wanting out of the lottery business, the government sold the right to conduct lotteries to brokers who, in turn, hired people to sell them to the general public, creating a new profession we know today as the stockbroker.

But the lottery still had worlds to conquer. In 1612, King James I of England held the first lottery to fund the Jamestown settlement, the first successful colony in America.

As people moved from the Old World to the New, they brought the lottery with them.

The Lottery Comes to America

The Founding Fathers found many uses for the lottery in both peacetime and war. The Continental Congress used lotteries to fund part of the War for Independence, and Benjamin Franklin used lotteries to buy cannons for the Revolution. After the war, Thomas Jefferson used a lottery to pay off personal debt, and George Washington employed a lottery in Virginia to fund the building of roads to the West.

But by the late 1800’s the lottery began to get a reputation for corruption. The worst case of lottery fraud was the Louisiana State Lottery which ran from 1868 to 1892. It became known as the “Golden Octopus” due to its widespread corruption and its reach into seemingly every American household.

By 1890 states were banning lotteries and President Harrison called on Congress to outlaw the game entirely. As a result, Congress prohibited the Postal Service from delivering lottery tickets in 1892 and passed legislation to end lotteries permanently by 1900.

The Lottery Today

It wasn’t until after WWII that the lottery began its comeback. New Hampshire was the first state to bring back the lottery in 1964.

The first interstate lottery was established in 1985 between three New England states. In 1988 Oregon, Iowa, Kansas, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Missouri, and the District of Columbia formed the Multi-State Lottery Association, which later became the Powerball.

A total of 46 jurisdictions and 43 states currently have lotteries.