How Lottery Started in Louisisana

Lotteries were not without their problems.

The Continental Congress devised a five million dollar lottery for the purpose of financing the Revolutionary War in 1777. All winners who held winning tickets for amounts in excess of fifty dollars were told they would be paid in the future and received promissory notes.

Due to fraud and mismanagement, most of those who purchased winning tickets never received their money and the lottery was a disaster.

Gambling was condoned and even encouraged without opposition during the fifty-odd years after the Louisiana Purchase in 1903.

Gambling houses and halls were built, the old games from Europe and England were imported and expanded upon, and crooked gambling practices became prevalent.

This widespread acceptance of gambling continued until the pre-Civil War era. Big businesses conducted a number of fraudulent lotteries and offended the population.

As part of a reform movement that swept the country, anti-gambling sentiments developed. This campaign was directed against all forms of gambling, but especially against lotteries.

Some members of the reform movement, however, did not endorse the campaign against lotteries.

Labor reformers continued to support lotteries even though a significant amount of revenue gained came from the workers who purchased tickets. The labor leaders believed that this was a relatively inexpensive way for the workers to have a chance of becoming wealthy.

Despite this attitude, the reformers were successful in their efforts to ban lotteries in most states. By the time the Civil War began, only three states still allowed them--- Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky.

The lottery again reared its head in 1865. An eastern gambling syndicate received permission from the state of Louisiana to operate a lottery at a cost of $40,000 a year for twenty-five years.

The Lottery's charter was voided in 1879 but the syndicate again bribed officials to force an extension. Several bills to halt the lottery were introduced in Washington D.C., but were unsuccessful until 1890.

Legislation was passed that banned the use of the postal service to mail any lottery paraphernalia.

The Louisiana legislature voted down a charter renewal in 1892 and the syndicate moved the operation to Honduras to avoid the postal regulations. In 1895, however, Congress prohibited the importing of any lottery material, effectively ending the Louisiana Lottery.

A significant legacy of the Lottery is that it created in people's minds a lasting image coupling gambling with political corruption. Regardless of the ban, some states were in for making money not only for their citizens, but in general, as well.