The amount of money lost on speculation in New Orleans in ten years is estimated at $82,000,000,—almost as much as the property valuation—and some commercial concerns regarded as among the most solvent in the city have been dragged down to bankruptcy.
Perhaps the most seductive and dangerous form of gambling in New Orleans to-day is the mania for buying tickets in the Louisiana lottery, with its attendant evil, “policy playing.” Lottery playing has always prevailed in New Orleans. Lotteries innumerable existed in the old days, and even the churches—notably Christ Church, the first Protestant church in Louisiana, and to this day, the largest and most fashionable—were built by means of lotteries.
The lotteries of the “olden times,” however, were small concerns, yet they stimulated the desire and whetted the appetite for this sort of excitement. They prepared the way for the extraordinary success which, as has been already said, attended the introduction of the sale of Havana lottery tickets into the Crescent City.
After the war, the Kentucky State Lottery Company sold some of its tickets in New Orleans, but that concern never became so popular among the people at large as was the Havana Lottery.
The considerations which induced the State Legislature to incorporate the Louisiana Company have been already set forth. Too much money was going to Cuba, and it was thought that the public treasury might as well be enriched by a portion of the profits, which were known to be numerous. All attempts to enforce the payment of a percentage on the sale of Havana tickets have proved lamentable failures.
The act of incorporation of the Louisiana State Lottery was passed in 1868. Under its terms the company was granted a lease of life for a period of twenty-five years. Under the constitution of 1880, its grip upon the state was confirmed until the expiration of the year 1892. As has been pointed out, in consideration of the payment by the company into the state treasury of $40,000 per annum, the concern was to be secured in a monopoly of the sale of lottery tickets within the state. At first, however, this provision of the law was not enforced, Havana tickets being freely sold upon the streets. But gradually the more attractive offers of the home company and its growing popularity attracted more and more business to its coffers, until, little by little it virtually had a field to itself.
Of the $40,000 yearly tax, one-half was set apart for the maintenance of the Charity Hospital—the largest free hospital in America—while the remainder was devoted to the public service fund.
Originally the business of the company was very largely confined to daily drawings and policy playing, and at one time there were not less than 180 places within the corporate limits at which policy might be played. At this time the sale of tickets was confined exclusively to Louisiana and mainly to New Orleans. As time went by, however, the company changed its schedule of drawings and gradually extended its operations until they included the entire country. The result of these various new departures was to enhance the importance of the monthly drawings to such an extent that the daily distributions and the attendant policy playing sunk into comparative insignificance. Little by little, the value of the prizes and the price of tickets have been doubled, until a whole ticket in a monthly drawing costs $20, while a similar chance in the semi-annual distribution of prizes is held at $40. Fully nine-tenths of the tickets are sold outside of Louisiana, the largest buyers being Texas, California, New York, Washington and Chicago.
The existing schedule of drawing is as follows: Two grand semi-annual drawings; ten monthly drawings; three hundred and thirteen daily drawings (with policy playing ad libitum); making a grand total of three hundred and twenty-five drawings during the year.
The following table shows the number of each description of drawings, the number of tickets printed, the price paid for a whole chance, the value of the tickets sold, the amount of cash prizes distributed, and the sum paid out in salary commissions.