The lottery business of New York is extensive, and, though conducted in
violation of the law, those who carry it on make scarcely a show of
secrecy.
The principal lottery office of the city is located on Broadway, near St.
Paul's church. It is ostensibly a broker's office, and the windows
display the usual collection of gold and silver coins, bills, drafts,
etc. At the rear end of the front room is a door which leads into the
office in which lottery tickets are sold. It is a long, narrow
apartment, lighted from the ceiling, and so dark that the gas is usually
kept burning. A high counter extends along two sides of the room, and
the walls back of this are lined with handbills setting forth the schemes
of the various lotteries. Two large black-boards are affixed to the wall
back of the main counter, and on these are written the numbers as soon as
the drawings have been made. There is always a crowd of anxious faces in
this room at the hour when the drawings are received.
The regular lotteries for which tickets are sold here, are the Havana
Lottery, which is conducted by the Government of the Island of Cuba, the
Kentucky State Lottery, drawn at Covington, Kentucky, and the Missouri
State Lottery, drawn at St. Louis, Mo.
The Havana Lottery is managed on the single number plan. There are
26,000 tickets and 739 prizes. The 26,000 tickets are put in the wheel,
and are drawn out one at a time. At the same time another ticket
inscribed with the amount of a prize is drawn from another wheel, and
this prize is accorded to the number drawn from the ticket wheel. This
is continued until the 739 prizes have been disposed of.
The Kentucky and Missouri lotteries are drawn every day at noon, and
every night. The prizes are neither as large nor as numerous as in the
Havana lottery. The drawings are made in public, and the numbers so
drawn are telegraphed all over the country to the agents of the lottery.
"The lottery schemes are what is known as the ternary combination of
seventy-eight numbers, being one to seventy-eight, inclusive; or in other
words, 'three number' schemes. The numbers vary with the day. To-day
seventy-eight numbers may be placed in the wheel and fourteen of them
drawn out. Any ticket having on it three of the drawn numbers takes a
prize, ranging from fifty thousand dollars to three hundred dollars, as
the scheme may indicate for the day. Tickets with two of the drawn
numbers on them pay an advance of about a hundred per cent. of their
cost. Tickets with only one of the drawn numbers on them get back first
cost. On another day only seventy-five numbers will be put in the wheel,
and only twelve or thirteen drawn out. And so it goes.
"The owners or managers of these concerns are prominent sporting men and
gamblers of New York and elsewhere. Considerable capital is invested.
It is said that it takes nearly two million dollars to work this
business, and that the profits average five hundred thousand dollars or
more a year. The ticket sellers get a commission of twelve per cent. on
all sales. The tickets are issued to them in lots, one set of
combinations going to one section of the country this week, another next;
and all tickets unsold up to the hour for the drawing at Covington, are
sent back to headquarters. In this way many prizes are drawn by tickets
which remain unsold in dealers' hands after they have reported to the
agents; and the lottery makes it clear."
It is argued that lotteries, if managed by honest men, are of necessity
fair. This is true; but there is a vast amount of questionable honesty
in the whole management. The numbers may be so manipulated as to be
entirely in favor of the proprietors, and in the fairest lottery the
chances are always very slim in favor of the exact combination expressed
on any given ticket being drawn from the wheel. The vast majority of
ticket buyers never receive a cent on their outlay. They simply throw
their money away. Yet all continue their ventures in the hope that they
may at some time draw a lucky number. The amount annually expended in
this city in the purchase of lottery tickets is princely. The amount
received in prizes is beggarly. The effect upon the lottery gamblers is
appalling. Men and women of all ages are simply demoralized by it. They
neglect their legitimate pursuits, stint themselves and their families,
commit thefts and forgeries, and are even driven into madness and suicide
by the hope of growing rich in a day.