Although most people don’t think of it that way, lotteries are the most widespread and popular form of gambling today. This is perhaps because lotteries are most often operated by the government. There are at least 100 countries with national lotteries, from Sportstake in South Africa to El Gordo, the famous Christmas lottery in Spain.
Lotteries are also among the most ancient forms of gambling. So, let’s take a look at them today, as they go from painted stones to online tickets.
Ancient lotteries
Lotteries have been around for millennia. Legends speak of a lottery-type game, similar to keno, being used to fund the building of the Great Wall of China. What’s certain, in turn, is that a similar game was documented to be played in China around 200 BCE. The idea of funding the state through a game of chance was prevalent in Ancient Rome as well. Emperor Augustus, who ruled Rome between 63 BCE and 14 AD organized a lottery to fund repairs to the city.
The ancient Greeks used a lottery not to raise funds but to elect officials. In 6 BCE, the selection by lot was common practice: dignitaries and magistrates were elected from the people through lottery-like draws.
The first modern lottery
Lotteries were used for raising funds as early as 1445 in the Low Countries as a form of “painless taxation”. Some of them had quite hefty prizes. The first state lottery in Europe was also Dutch: Staatsloterij was founded in 1726.
The most widely used form of lottery today is 5 out of 90, and this one originated in Italy – the city-state of Florence, to be precise. And it was originally used to elect the members of the city’s Great Council. The names of 90 candidates were put in a bag, and five of them were drawn every six months. Does it sound familiar?
The people of Florence used to bet on the names of the officials. Soon, they started demanding more frequent draws. Thus, the institution of the weekly “5 of 90” lottery draw was born and spread all over the world.
Going online
Online casinos started to spread soon after the Internet became mainstream. Lotteries, in turn, have resisted the great online for a while. Not that there wasn’t innovation in the area – the first online ticketing system was introduced in 1994 by the Liechtenstein International Lottery. But, as state-run businesses are slow to embrace innovative services, lotteries were simply slower to go online. But once the ice was broken, novel forms of lottery started spreading online.
Today, there are many lotteries offering their services online, from the UK National Lottery to Euromillions, one of the biggest transnational lotteries in Europe. And they offer quite a few innovative games to bet on, like South Africa’s Sportstake which combines 1X2 betting with an online lottery. And it’s quite popular, too: millions of locals are checking the Sportstake 13 results online twice a week.
In conclusion
Lotteries have been part of humanity’s life for more than two millennia. From the game that funded the Great Wall of China to Sportstake 13, the betting game of the South African National Lottery, there is a straight line that took this popular game from painted stones to online tickets, making them more accessible to everyone.