In 1822 he was, with John B. Yates, appointed agent for the State lotteries. The Constitution of 1821 had forbidden any further lotteries within the State, and authorized the Legislature to pass laws preventing the sale of tickets except in the lotteries already established by law. These were mostly instituted under the law of 1814 for the purpose of aiding literary institutions. By the act appointing him, the agents were invested with sole authority to issue and sell all lottery tickets which, for the future, were to be issued to pay some hundreds of thousands of dollars due various institutions. The legislative intent was carried out by the agents to the satisfaction of the beneficiaries, and also with satisfactory pecuniary results to the agents themselves. Upon his retirement from his agency Mr. McIntyre was able to withdraw both from politics and business. One would hardly expect to find in the books of account in the Comptroller's office anything in the nature of a history of morals, but the receipts from various lotteries forms a no inconsiderable part of the receipts of the State for a number of years. This opens up a view which almost shocks modern sensibility. Lotteries were not only authorized by the State, but they were in the main devoted to beneficent purposes. Union College owes no inconsiderable part of her early usefulness to money derived from State lotteries. Indeed, the institution of State lotteries in New York may almost be attributed to the efforts of that truly great and good man, the Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott. The first moneys ever appropriated by New York for the purposes of free schools were raised by lottery.