As well as being a means of winning money through gambling for an individual, a lottery may also be an easy way to help towards funding numerous and diverse altruistic projects,which might otherwise be under funded or even abandoned, thereby helping society as a whole and helping to underpin its infrastructure.
Historically, although the original lottery, called Keno, was begun in China during the Hun Dynasty, or around 100BC, when revenue raised went into projects to defend the country, such as the Great Wall of China, it was the ancient Romans who modified and developed the idea of a lottery, the first such in Europe. Augustus took the idea of private gambling, which was popular with noble households, and expanded it, with tickets sold to fill the Emperors coffers with money to keep the city in a good state of repair. Rather than the cash usually awarded today, objects of virtue were awarded as prizes to the lucky citizens.
It was not until many, many years afterwords that the first lotteries held in relatively modern times are recorded as having taken place, in 1434, in Sluis, a town in the Netherlands. It was around ten years after this that lotteries giving away cash begin to appear in Flanders, an area roughly comprising parts of modern day France, Holland and Belgium. These raised a slush fund to help the town paupers, as well as keep the town fortifications in good repair. It is reputed that the Dutch were early adopters of the idea of a lottery as a form of taxation. Belgium town council records show that in 1465, lotteries were used as a means to gain money to assist in the following important building projects:almshouses, chapels, port facilities and canals.
Western Europe clamored for an opportunity to play. In England, Queen Elizabeth I shrewdly began the English state lottery, the first of which sold four thousand tickets- showing the public appetite not only for gambling, but also for the rich prizes: tapestries, plate and cash. The government soon sold the rights to the lottery to brokers, who then hired middle men - agents to sell the tickets on to the public. It was a very successful undertaking, and continued to raise significant amounts of revenue until 1836, when the then government discontinued it.
Different forms of the lottery were invented and took hold, with lotteries played almost universally worldwide in some fashion or other. Soon, however, the initial noble intentions of the first lotteries were submerged in a sea of greed and corruption. Many private lotteries did not give the prizes as advertised, but maintained the right to substitute inferior prizes; inn the worst cases, no prizes were ever handed over to the unfortunate winners. The United States and Canada eventually banned all lotteries, and prohibiting all such. In time, however, new laws and regulations were decreed to ensure the fair running of the new generation of lotteries and games of chance.
Current practice is for lotteries to allot a percentage of ticket sales to good causes, and the upkeep of public buildings and parks etc. The lottery has even come into the modern era, with the advent of convenient online playing and gambling websites.
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