Note 1041 — LOTTERY. TONTINE.

[Lotto does not consist, like the lottery, of a fixed number of tickets and a certain number of specified prizes, but is, in fact, a mere game of chance, at which the stakes are indefinite, and is thus played. A given quantity of numbers are placed together, of which a few are only to be drawn: the adventurers then select any one or more, on which they bet any sum they think proper; and, should they prove successful, they draw so much more than their stake, in a settled proportion, according as their risk was increased by the quantity of numbers which they named together. Thus the usual quantity is ninety numbers, from one upwards, and five only of these are drawn: if the adventurer chooses but one number out of the 90, and that it be one of those drawn, his stake is returned fifteen fold; if two, he receives, if they be drawn, 270 times the stake; if three, 5500 times; if four, 75,000 times; and should he name the entire five, in the exact order in which they happen to be drawn, he is entitled to 1,000,000 times more than the stake he ventured. These chances are all calculated largely in favour of the banker or holder of the lotto, and there is no instance upon public record of any person having named the five numbers in regular succession; but three have been frequently fixed upon, and even four have been sometimes, though rarely, attained: by the latter chance, the lotto established in 1774 at Neufchatel was ruined.]