Since lotteries have become illegal there have been a great number of
judicial decisions defining a lottery. In general, where skill or
judgment is to be exercised there is no lottery, the essential element
of which is chance or lot. There are numerous statutes against
lotteries, the reason being given that they "tend to promote a
gambling spirit," and that it is the duty of the state to "protect the
morals and advance the welfare of the people." In New York the
Constitution of 1846 forbade lotteries, and by § 324 of the Penal Code
a lottery is declared "unlawful and a public nuisance." "Contriving"
and advertising lotteries is also penal. The following have been held
illegal lotteries: In New York, a concert, the tickets for which
entitled the holder to a prize to be drawn by lot; in Indiana,
offering a gold watch to the purchaser of goods who guesses the number
of beans in a bottle; in Texas, selling "prize candy" boxes; and
operating a nickel-in-the-slot machine--so also in Louisiana; in
Massachusetts, the "policy" or "envelope game," or a "raffle"; in
Kentucky (1905), prize coupon packages, the coupons having to spell a
certain word (_U.S._ v. _Jefferson_, 134 Fed. R. 299); in Kansas
(1907) it was held by the Supreme Court that the gift of a hat-pin to
each purchaser was not illegal as a "gift enterprise," there being no
chance or lot. In Oklahoma (1907) it was held that the making of
contracts for the payment of money, the certainty in value of return
being dependent on chance, was a lottery (_Fidelity Fund Co._ v.
_Vaughan_, 90 Pac. Rep. 34). The chief features of a lottery are
"procuring through lot or chance, by the investment of a sum of money
or something of value, some greater amount of money or thing of
greater value. When such are the chief features of any scheme whatever
it may be christened, or however it may be guarded or concealed by
cunningly devised conditions or screens, it is under the law a
lottery" (_U.S._ v. _Wallace_, 58, Fed. Rep. 942). In 1894 and 1897
Congress forbade the importation of lottery tickets or advertisements
into the United States. In 1899, setting up or promoting lotteries in
Alaska was prohibited by Congress, and in 1900 it forbade any lottery
or sale of lottery tickets in Hawaii. In Porto Rico lotteries, raffles
and gift-enterprises are forbidden (Penal Code, 1902, § 291).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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