Winning the lottery has a long and ancient history. The phrase “lottery” comes from the Italian “lotto”, meaning fate or destiny. Many lottery games in the English speaking world are referred to as lotto games. How to win the lottery has been a world wide question for hundreds, even thousands of years.

Lotteries have an ancient, venerable and somewhat checkered history. There are numerous biblical references to the drawing of lots to award ownership and in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 26, Moses uses a lottery to award land west of the River Jordan. Within the New Testament, Roman soldiers drew lots to decide who would get Jesus’ cloak after the crucifixion.

In 100 BC, the Hun Dynasty in China created the lottery game described as Keno. Most of the funds raised were used to finance the construction of the good Wall, intended as a perimeter defense. Winning the lottery was less important than defending the country.

The very first 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 explains that the lottery once we know it dates back to 15th century France where it was utilized by individual towns to raise money for strengthening the town’s defenses (Europe has a solid tradition of citizens considering themselves as belonging to a town rather than a state or even 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 use from 1520, and the first municipal lottery to offer money as a prize was La Lotto de Firenze, run by the city of Florence in 1530. Other metropolitan areas in Italy soon followed suit.

In 1567, Queen Elizabeth I established the very first English state lottery, with prizes including cash, gold and silver plate, and tapestries. 400,000 tickets were offered for sale. For a while, just how to win the lottery was a question on all the citizens’ lips.

In 1612, King James I of England created a lottery in London by royal decree. The proceeds helped to finance the very first British colony in America at Jamestown, Virginia. Anglican churches held 2 of the three winning tickets in the first draw!

Within the middle 18th century, a notable event occurred in France. As a result of the prospect of fixing the results in privately operated lotteries, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725 – 1798) persuaded Louis XV of France to found the first state-owned monopoly lottery, the Loterie Royale of the armed service School, which became the forerunner of the Loterie Nationale. All the 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 an interest in the new lottery and became wealthy as such, but sold his interest shortly afterwards and lost the proceeds through unwise investments; sounds the same as some modern lottery winners, does not it?)

In the 18th century, lotteries were well under way in America, primarily to fund some venture or as a way out of debt. The very first began in Massachusetts in 1744 because of military debts. The very first national lottery was started through the Continental Congress in 1776 to raise funds for the American Revolution. The Founding Fathers were concerned not so much with just how to win the lottery but with the way to raise funds using lotteries. Many of the Founding Fathers played and sponsored lotteries: