Rome in 1860

by Edward Dicey

I suspect the profit must be very much beyond the sum mentioned; anyhow, this source of income is a very important one, and is guarded jealously as a Government monopoly. Private gambling tables of any kind are rigidly suppressed. If you want to gamble, you must gamble at the tables and on the terms of the Government. The very sale of foreign lottery-tickets is, I believe, forbidden. To this rule there is one exception, and that is in favour of Tuscany. Between the Grand Ducal and the Papal Governments there long existed an entente cordiale on the subject of lotteries. There is no bond, cynics say, so powerful as that of common interest; and this saying seems to be justified in the present instance. Though the Court of Rome is at variance on every point of politics and faith with the present revolutionary Government of Tuscany, yet in matters of money they are not divided; and so the joint lottery-system flourishes, as of old. The lottery is drawn once a fortnight at Rome, and once every alternate fortnight at Florence or Leghorn; and as far as the speculator is concerned, it makes no difference whether his ticket is drawn for in Rome or in Tuscany, though the gains and losses of each branch are, I understand,

kept separate. These lotteries are not of the plain, good old English stamp, in which there were, say, ten thousand tickets, and ten prizes of different value allotted to the holders of the ten first numbers drawn, while the remaining nine thousand nine hundred and ninety ticket-holders drew blanks. The system of speculation in vogue here is far more hazardous and complicated. To any one acquainted with the German gambling-places it is enough to say, that the Papal lottery-system is exactly like that of a roulette table, with the one important exception, that the chances in the bank’s favour, instead of being about thirty-seven to thirty-six, as they are at Baden or Hamburgh, are in the proportion of three to one. For the benefit of those to whom these words convey no definite meaning, I will endeavour to explain the system as simply as I can.

In a Papal or Tuscan lottery there are ninety numbers, from one up to ninety, and of these numbers, five are drawn at each drawing. You may, therefore, stake your money on any one or two or three or four or five of the ninety numbers being drawn, which is termed playing at the “eletto,” “ambo,” “terno,” “quaterno,” and

“tombola” respectively, or you may finally play “al estratto,” that is, you may not only speculate on the particular numbers drawn, but on the order in which they may happen to be drawn. Practically, people rarely play upon any except the three first-named chances, and they will be sufficient for my explanation. Now a very simple arithmetical calculation will show you, that the chances against your naming one number out of the five drawn is eighteen to one; against your predicting two, four hundred to one; and against your hitting on three, nearly twelve thousand to one. Supposing, therefore, the game was played with ordinary fairness, and even as much as 25 per cent. were deducted for profit and working expenses off the winnings, you ought, if you staked a scudo, for instance, and won an “eletto,” “ambo” or “terno,” to win in round numbers 14, 300, and 9000 scudi respectively. If in reality you did win (a very great “if” indeed), you would not be paid in these instances more than 4, 25 and 3600 scudi. In fact, if ever there was invented in this world a game, of which the old saying, “Heads I win, and tails you lose” held true, it would be of the Papal Lottery. If the numbers you back do not happen to turn

up, you lose the whole of your stake; if they do, you are docked of more than seventy-five per cent. of your winnings. For my part, I would sooner play at thimble-rig on Epsom Downs, or dominoes with Greek merchants, or at “three-cards” with a casual and communicative fellow-passenger of sporting cast: I should infallibly be legged, but I should hardly be plundered so ruthlessly or remorselessly. Still the Vatican, like all gentlemen who play with loaded dice or marked cards, may have a run of luck against it. Spiritual infallibility itself cannot determine whether a halfpenny tossed into the air will come down man or woman, and the law of chances cannot be regulated by a motu proprio. It is possible, though not probable, that on any one occasion the majority of the gamblers might stake their money fortuitously on one series of numbers, and if that series did happen to be drawn, then the loss to the Lottery, even with all deductions, would be a heavy one, and the Roman exchequer is by no means in a position to bear a heavy drain. In consequence, measures are taken to avert this calamity; each office reports daily what sums have been staked on what numbers; and, if any numbers are regarded with undue partiality, orders are issued from the head

department to receive no more money on these numbers or series. I have assumed all along that the numbers are drawn fairly, and, without a very high opinion of the integrity of our Papal rulers, I am disposed to think they are. In the first place, any general impression of unfairness would greatly damage the future profits of the speculation; and, secondly, by the usual rule of averages it will be found that, on the whole, people stake pretty equally on one combination as another, and therefore the question, which particular numbers are drawn, is of less practical importance to the lottery management than might at first be supposed. In spite, however, of these abstract considerations, the virtue of the Papal Lotteries, unlike that of Cæsar’s wife, is not above suspicion; and I have often heard Romans remark, that the only possible explanation of there being one blank day between the closing the lottery-offices and the drawing was the obvious one, that time was required to calculate, from the state of the stakes, what combination of winning numbers will be most beneficial, or least hurtful, to the Papal pockets.

Whatever mathematicians may assert, your regular gamblers always believe in luck, and

therefore it is not surprising that a nation, whose great excitement is the lottery, should be devout worshippers of the blind goddess. It may be that some memories of the Pythagorean doctrines still exist in the land of their birth, but be the cause what it may, it is certain that in the southern Peninsula a belief in the symbolism of numbers is a received article of faith. Every thing, name, or event, has its numerical interpretation. Suppose, for instance, a robbery occurs; forthwith the numbers or sequences of numbers corresponding to the name of the robber or the robbed, the day or hour of the crime, the articles stolen, or a dozen other coincident circumstances, are eagerly sought after and staked upon in the ensuing lottery. Then there are the numeri simpatici, or the numbers in each month or year which are supposed to be fortunate, and lists of which are published in the popular almanacs. The “sympathetic number for instance for the month of March is 88,” why or wherefore I have never been able to discover. Let me assume now, that having dreamt a dream, or heard of a death, or I care not what, you wish to stake your money on the arithmetical signification of the occurrence. You will have no difficulty in discovering a lottery-office;

in well nigh every street there are one or more “Prenditoria di Lotti.” In fact, begging and gambling are the only two trades that thrive in Rome, or are pushed with enterprise or energy. When the drawing takes place in Tuscany, the result is communicated at once by the electric telegraph, a fact unparalleled in any other branch of Roman business. Over each office are placed the Papal arms, the cross keys of St Peter and the tiara. Outside their aspects differ, according to the quarter of the city. In the well-to-do streets, if such an appellation applied to any street here be not an absurdity, the exterior of the lottery-offices are neat but not gaudy. A notice, printed in large black letters on a white placard, that this week the lottery will be drawn for in Rome, or where-ever it may be, and a simple glass frame over the door, in which are slid the winning numbers of last week, form the whole outward adornment. In the poor and populous parts the lotteries flaunt out in all kinds of shabby finery: the walls about the door are pasted over with puffing inscriptions; from stands in front of the shop flutter long stripes of parti-coloured paper, inscribed with all sorts of cabalistic figures. If you like

you may try the “Terno della fortuna,” which is certain, morally, to turn up this week or next. If you are of a philosophical disposition, you may stake your luck on the numbers 19 and 42, which have not been drawn for ever so long a time, and must therefore be drawn sooner—or later; or if you like to cast in your lot with others, you may back that “ambo” which has “sold” marked against it; at any rate, you will not be the only fool who stands to lose or win on that chance, which, after all, is some slight consolation. If none of these inducements are sufficient, you may fix on your choice by spinning round the index on the painted dial-plate, and choosing the numbers opposite to which the spin stops, thus making chance determine chance. Having, at last, selected your combination somehow or other, you enter the office with something of that shamefaced feeling which, I suppose, a man must be conscious of the first time that he ever enters the back-door of a pawnbroker’s establishment.