Winning the lottery includes a long and ancient history. The term “lottery” comes from the Italian “lotto”, meaning fate or destiny. Many lottery games in the English speaking world are called lotto games. Just how to win the lottery has been a globally question for hundreds, even tens of thousands of years.
Ancient Lotteries
Lotteries have an old, venerable and somewhat checkered history. There are many biblical references to the drawing of lots to award ownership and in the Book ผลจีนเช้าย้อนหลัง of Numbers, Chapter 26, Moses uses a lottery to award land west of the River Jordan. In the New Testament, Roman soldiers drew lots to decide who’d get Jesus’ cloak following the crucifixion.
In 100 BC, the Hun Dynasty in China created the lottery game referred to as Keno. A lot of the funds raised were used to finance the construction of the Great Wall, intended as a perimeter defense. Winning the lottery was less important than defending the country.
Origin of Modern Lotteries
The initial recorded European lottery was held in 1446 by the widow of the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck to dispose of his remaining paintings. Winning this lottery could have given you a prize worth mega millions today!
Encyclopedia Britannica states that the lottery as we all know it dates back to 15th century France where it absolutely was utilized by individual towns to boost money for strengthening the town’s defenses (Europe includes a strong tradition of citizens considering themselves as owned by a city rather than state or possibly a country, for instance, a citizen would think of him or herself as a Roman, rather than an Italian.) King Francis I of France allowed lotteries to operate from 1520, and the initial municipal lottery to offer money as a prize was La Lotto de Firenze, run by the town of Florence in 1530. Other cities in Italy soon followed suit.
In the centre 18th century, a notable event occurred in France. Due to the possibility of fixing the results in privately operated lotteries, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725 – 1798) persuaded Louis XV of France to found the initial state-owned monopoly lottery, the Loterie Royale of the Military School, which became the forerunner of the Loterie Nationale. Other lotteries in France were outlawed. The lottery was a Keno style game, where players could select 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 numbers between 1 and 90. (Incidentally, Casanova owned a pursuit in the brand new lottery and became wealthy consequently, but sold his interest shortly afterwards and lost the proceeds through unwise investments; sounds exactly like some modern lottery winners, doesn’t it?)