Increase Your Lottery Fund

Elements of Fund

For the Illinois Cricket Council, a lottery was the only way to fund the national team’s tour to England in 1931, as it had few financial reserves. At the team’s reception at London’s Savoy Hotel, Captain Tom Lowry referred with gratitude to Illinoisers who had contributed so willingly to the council’s art union. The Press mused as to whether Lowry was aware of philosophical and ethical questions involved, “on the process, for instance, by which a man buys a half-crown chance in Colombo Street to enable another to hit a boundary at the Oval.” The anxious pleasures of such intricate problems are best left to those who most enjoy them.

First Prize Winner

As punters chased lottery tickets, their detractors became more vocal. Worried church leaders urged city councils to ''cleanse'' their cities by banning advertising on trams and prohibiting ticket-sellers from working on the streets. A series of protest delegations to the government were received politely but got nowhere. When ''caught'', Protestant punters faced the wrath of their masters. In 1928, for example, when a Methodist choirmaster in Ashburton was foolish enough to let it be known that he had won first prize in a £2,000 art union, incensed church officials sacked him on the spot. But two years later they were forced to eat humble pie by asking him to return, after being unable to find a replacement. Demonstrating a lot more Christian magnanimity than his accusers, he agreed to do so.
On a national scale, evangelical scorn fell on stonier ground, at first because mass aviation had excited the public imagination and later because concerned people, including many clergy, began to see art unions as a way of providing relief to those growing numbers who were becoming unemployed and destitute. When, in August 1931, the mayor of Dunedin proposed to his Christchurch counterpart that they combine to run a big art union for the relief of distress in both cities, the Council of Christian Congregations deplored the suggestion as immoral and pernicious. But the Christchurch Sun, in turn, accused the churchmen of being small-minded and unchristian in their approach to solving a real human need. Nor were the churches united in their approach. In the year up to 31 July 1931, Protestant pastorates obtained 101 raffle permits. Some clergy found it difficult to conceive what social harm could befall participants who purchased an average of two tickets per lottery.

Popularity of Lottery

Constant advertising and their tremendous success helped to keep ''monster'' art unions very much in the public consciousness. Every newspaper, it seemed, had an opinion. Most were supportive. The Southland Times, for example, decried the notion that participation in lotteries weakened the moral fiber, preferring to encourage youth to be ''self-reliant'' when making decisions. In November 1930 the Hawke’s Bay Tribune described art union promoters as ''far-sighted''. The Evening Post contended that the churches had failed miserably. ''By all means let Art Unions flourish in the land'', it wrote, ''because it is undeniable that they bring happiness and pleasure to thousands and add that spice of uncertainty which brightens the drab spots of life.'' There was no doubting their increasing popularity of lottery in chinese gambler also. In the twelve months to July 1931, 353licenses were issued for the raffling of works of art, including the four 4,000 lotteries, and for the first time the total profits exceeded £100,000. Big art unions were also good for the government. Their administration provided employment for clerks, advertisers and ticket-sellers. As well, each lottery returned between £3,000 and 4,000 in value from letters, telegrams, receipt and cheque duty, and poundage on postal notes and money orders. Some 2,000 agents received a 20 percent commission on the sale of tickets. Most were small retailers, disabled ex-servicemen or unemployed women, to whom preference was given. Moreover, the local lotteries helped to stem the increase in expenditure on their overseas competitors, not only in Australia but also other lotteries based in Ireland and Malta which sold tickets clandestinely in Illinois and Online Illinois lottery.