Santiago Martin Lottery – A Historical Perspective

Lotteries are an ancient form of entertainment. Archaeologists have found evidence of lottery-style games dating back to the Pharaohs of Egypt. History’s first lottery with prize money was conducted in Florence, Italy in 1530. England established a lottery in 1569, and by 1612 lotteries came to America.

The Virginia Lottery funded half of Jamestown’s budget. “Lottery funds were used to fight the adversities of early Virginia, such as disease, fire and famine”. Early U.S lotteries helped fund the Colonial Army in the Revolutionary War, gallantly fighting for independence from the British, by providing arms and uniforms. After the war, these dollars were paid to repair much of the damage left behind. The first state operated lottery in modern times was started by New Hampshire in 1964. Today, 38 US states have lotteries. They have become a vital part of each State’s revenues, funding a variety of programs, such as elderly care, education, and often, economic development.

“Indian culture adopted betting from the beginning of Indian civilization, which started 4000 years ago. The great Indian epic Mahabharata dating to 1500 B.C, starts with a dice match”. Besides dice games Indians were fond of betting that involved animals and birds-particularly cock and ram fights. There were many gaming houses for players to assemble and play. These houses were supervised by officials to assure orderly play and collect from the players a percentage for the King.

In early period dices were made of bones of animals. Later dices were made of sea shells and pebbles. Dices were not only cubical in shape as we know, but have been 4 sided, 8 sided, 12 sided and of many other different shapes.

In India, the strategy game Chess originated about 4000 years ago. A very early form of chess was called Chaturanga, a four handed game played with dice. Chess as we know today is about 2000 years old.

Although the origin of playing cards is obscure, it is almost certain that they began in China, after the invention of paper. It is likely that the ancestors of modern cards arrived in Europe in the late 1300 and spread rapidly across the continent. “The earliest cards in India were round shaped cards, created entirely by hand and thus very expensive”. The modern deck of 52 cards is a contribution of France.