Cashing Lottery Prizes
In the State Lottery of 1739, tickets, chances and shares were “bought and sold by Richard Shergold, printer, at his office at the Union Coffee-house over and against the Royal Exchange, Cornhill.” He advertised that he kept numerical books during the drawing, and a book wherein buyers might register their numbers at sixpence each; that fifteen per cent. was to be deducted out of the prizes, which were to be paid at the bank in fifty days after the drawing. The heavy percentage demanded occasioned the following epigram:—
“This lottery can never thrive,”
Was broker heard to say,
“For who but fools will ever give
Fifteen per cent. to play?”
A sage, with his accustomed grin,
Replied, “I’ll stake my doom,
That if but half the fools come in
The wise will find no room!”