An Interesting History of Lotteries
The history of lotteries dates to around 200 BC
in China. Members of the Hun Dynasty used the concept of lotteries to raise
funds for taxes. In particular, the Emperor Cheung Leung is believed to have
invented the concept around 200 BC and revenue generated from this Chinese
Lottery was used to build the Great Wall of China. Cheung Leung’s particular
style of lottery has survived to the present day as what we call Keno.
While it’s likely that there were other lotteries
and raffles, there is very little written about the subject. The first lottery
in Europe, which was actually a raffle held by the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck
in 1446. The prize for winning that lottery was his painting. In 1465, lotteries
were regularly organized to raise money for building houses for the poor,
chapels, and canal systems. The way of
raising money was not named until the 1515, when an election gone wrong in
Genoa, Italy used numbers instead of names on its ballots. The word lottery in
Italian actually means a destiny or unalterable fate.
After fifteen years, the Italian city of Florence held a lottery
during which they gave away cash prizes. This idea of lottery systems soon
became popular in France, too. In 1539 France ran a lottery to get the nation
out of debt. In 1567, Queen Elizabeth I
started the first lottery concept, and offered 400,000 tickets for sale. The
first lottery that was credited was to King James I in England in 1612. The cash
prize that was won from this game was used to build the Jamestown colony in
Virginia – the first ever English colony in America.
The plan of lotteries was also used to fund culture. In 1753,
cash won in lottery was used to help build the British museum. This lottery
concept was a keno style game that gave players the option of betting on one to
five numbers between one and ninety. After
American colonial times in the 1700s, the lottery was a favorite past time,
especially for the founding fathers. Benjamin Franklin bought cannons for the
war using lottery money. George Washington used lottery money from a Virginia
lottery to finance construction of roads to the west. Thomas Jefferson once
organized a lottery to dispose of his property and raise some badly needed cash.
Amazingly, the Netherlands Lottery started in 1726, is still in operation today.
It is one of the oldest lotteries in the world.
Lotteries really worked out in the United States after the
adoption of the constitution. These were used to fund over 300 schools and 200
churches. The lottery helped in building universities such as Columbia, Harvard,
Princeton and Yale. Additionally, the lottery was used to fund civic
improvements, including orphanages, libraries, hospitals, jails and courthouses.
This trend began to lose thrust in 1820, when corruption became a problem. Many
privately owned lotteries which often advertised big jackpots through
communication mediums and then awarded no prizes at all.
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