Lottery Becomes Business

Americans generally grew more disposed to reform society by removing temptations such as gambling.

This impeded the pursuit of individual perfectibility--- the campaign against lotteries arose in part in the early nineteenth century.

It arose also because the character of lotteries themselves changed after the revolution. Eighteenth-century lotteries had mostly been small, local affairs conducted with a clear-cut sense of the common good.

Participants had purchased tickets in these schemes as a way of contributing to the development of a new country.

By the early nineteenth century, the scale and organization of lotteries had grown substantially.

One such agent during the 1820s was teenager P.T. Barnum, covered by selling tickets to foolish buyers that 'such bipeds as 'humbugs' certainly existed before I attained my majority.'

The money-raising device grew more similar to English lotteries by becoming a larger, more impersonal scheme where the chance to win a prize outweighed all other considerations to adventurers.

Moreover, after state legislators turned lotteries over to companies with offices across the country, reformers learned the same lesson that King James I had drawn from Englishmen's experience with the lotteries of the Virginia Company.

When delegated to private firms, the privilege of sponsoring lotteries was often prone to abuse.

A committee formed to investigate one Pennsylvania scheme explained how the 'corruption' of government-granted privilege could occur.

In the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, the state legislature, seeking to promote the building of canals, granted one construction firm the right to raise capital by lottery.

The Union Canal company foundered, however, in its early efforts to remain solvent.

To keep private investors in the company from placing their money elsewhere, the Commonwealth itself took over the lottery with the intention of raising 427,000 per year to pay as dividends to stockholders in the Union Canal company.

The state then contracted with a private firm to conduct the raffles. The lottery agents provided the state with its $27,000 annually, but they also grossed over $800,000 per year themselves on ticket sales of more than $5 million.

Noting the discrepancy between the state's and the company's income, the committee was astounded at such exploitation of privilege and recommended a total prohibition of lotteries in Pennsylvania.

Tales of other 'abuse' circulated, too, prompting citizens throughout the nation to join the crusade against lotteries.

One recurring argument charged that the schemes subverted the First Amendment to the Constitution by corrupting the free press.

By buying plenty of advertising space and by contracting with publishers for the printing of tickets and related literature, lottery agents reportedly undermined the integrity of newspapers and prevented editorial attack.