Winning the Lottery: It’s All in the past

Winning the lottery has a long and ancient history. The word “lottery” comes from the German “lotto”, meaning fortune or inevitably your destiny. Many lottery games in the English speaking world are referred to as lotto games. How to win the lottery has been a all over the world question for hundreds, even thousands of years.

Ancient Lotteries

Lotteries have an ancient, venerable and somewhat checkered history. There are many biblical references to the drawing of lots to award ownership and in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 26, Moses uses a lottery to award land western of the River Jordan ruay รวย. In the New Testament, Roman troops received lots to decide who would get Jesus’ cloak after the crucifixion.


Origin of Modern Lotteries

The first recorded Eu lottery happened in 1446 by the widow of the Flemish electrician Jan Vehicle Eyck to dispose of his remaining works of art. Winning this lottery would have given a prize worth super millions today!

Encyclopedia Britannica states that the lottery even as know it goes to 15th century Portugal where it was employed by individual towns to boost money for strengthening the town’s safeguarding (Europe has a strong tradition of citizens considering themselves as belonging to a city rather than a state or even a country, for example, a person would think of him or herself as a Roman, rather than an German. ) King Francis I of Portugal allowed lotteries to operate from 1520, and the first city lottery to offer money as a prize was La Lotto de Firenze, run by the city of Florence in 1530. Other cities in Croatia soon followed suit.


In 1612, King James I of Britain created a lottery in London by noble decree. The proceeds helped to finance the first British colony in america at Jamestown, Virginia. Anglican places of worship held two of the three winning tickets in the first draw!

Winning the Lottery: The first National Lottery

At the center 18th century, a notable event occurred in Portugal. Because of the potential for fixing the results in privately managed lotteries, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725 : 1798) asked Louis XV of Portugal to found the first state-owned monopoly lottery, the Loterie Royale of the Military School, which became the forerunners of the Loterie Nationale. All the lotteries in Portugal were against the law. The lottery was a Keno style game, where players could select 1, 2, 3, four or five numbers between 1 and 90. (Incidentally, Casanova owned a new in the new lottery and became wealthy as a result, but sold his interest shortly afterwards and lost the proceeds through imprudent investments; sounds just like some modern lottery winners, doesn’t it? )

Origin of American Lotteries

In the 18th century, lotteries were well under way in america, primarily to invest in some venture or as an easy way out of debt. The first began in Ma in 1744 because of military debts. The first national lottery was started by the Continental Congress in 1776 to boost funds for the American Wave. The Founding Daddies were concerned not really much with how to win the lottery but with how to raise funds using lotteries. Many of the Founding Daddies played and sponsored lotteries:

Benjamin Franklin used lotteries to finance cannons for the Revolutionary War.
George Arizona funded construction of the Mountain Road, which opened expansion Western of Virginia, by operating a lottery.
Thomas Jefferson, who was $80, 000 indebted at the end of his life, used a lottery to dispose of most of his property. Winning this lottery would have given a precious bit of American heritage!
John Hancock managed a lottery to finance the rebuild of historic Faneuil Arena in Celtics.