Louisiana State Lottery Company
Encyclopedia
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
lottery
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...
. It was for a time the only legal lottery in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and for much of that time had a very foul reputation as a swindle
Confidence trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
of the state and citizens and a repository of corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
.
The company, initially a syndicate
Syndicate
A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies or entities formed to transact some specific business, or to promote a common interest or in the case of criminals, to engage in organized crime...
from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, was chartered on August 11, 1868 by the Louisiana General Assembly
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...
with a 25-year charter and exchange gave the State $40,000 a year. With the passage of the charter, all other organized gambling was made illegal. This start almost immediately gave it a bad reputation as having bribed the legislators into a corrupt deal, especially at a time when other states were viewing lotteries and gambling with suspicion. It was founded by John A. Morris
John Albert Morris
John Albert Morris was an American businessman widely known as the "Lottery King" and a prominent figure in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing...
and Charles T. Howard, the former owing a controlling interest and the latter serving as its nominal head.
Charles Howard served as the first president, having previously worked for the Alabama Lottery and Kentucky State Lottery. Former Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
Generals P.G.T. Beauregard and Jubal Anderson Early
Jubal Anderson Early
Jubal Anderson Early was a lawyer and Confederate general in the American Civil War. He served under Stonewall Jackson and then Robert E. Lee for almost the entire war, rising from regimental command to lieutenant general and the command of an infantry corps in the Army of Northern Virginia...
held the drawings. They added credibility but according to the New York Times they were paid handsomely for the few days each month their services were needed. Most of the tickets were sent via special train (there was so much mail it required a special consideration) to agents in the U.S. and abroad who would sell them in their respective areas.
In 1890, three years before the charter's expiration, the company bribed the legislature into passing an act to write them into the constitution (thus requiring a successful supermajority
Supermajority
A supermajority or a qualified majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level or type of support which exceeds a simple majority . In some jurisdictions, for example, parliamentary procedure requires that any action that may alter the rights of the minority has a supermajority...
of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...
and referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
) by offering to give the state $500,000 per year.
Opposition and downfall
While the lottery was always opposed on vice and morality grounds, the renewal of the charter and constitutional amendment began the serious, organized opposition that would kill the company. The Anti-Lottery League and its newspaper, the "New Delta" were the main proponents of ending the drawings. The League was backed by many prominent activists of the time, such as Edward Douglass WhiteEdward Douglass White
Edward Douglass White, Jr. , American politician and jurist, was a United States senator, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and the ninth Chief Justice of the United States. He was best known for formulating the Rule of Reason standard of antitrust law. He also sided with the...
, who argued against it in the Louisiana Supreme Court
Louisiana Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Louisiana is the highest court and court of last resort in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The modern Supreme Court, composed of seven justices, meets in the French Quarter of New Orleans....
and Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock was a United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.-Biography:...
. The prominent Presbyterian minister of First Presbyterian Church, Benjamin M. Palmer
Benjamin M. Palmer
Benjamin Morgan Palmer , an orator and Presbyterian theologian, was the first moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. As pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, his Thanksgiving sermon in 1860 had a great influence in leading Louisiana to join the...
, delivered an anti-lottery speech on June 25, 1891 at one of the League's largest meetings at the Grand Opera House in New Orleans. Many believed this was the final blow to the lottery.
In 1890 the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
banned the interstate transportation
Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including...
of lottery tickets and lottery advertisements, which composed 90% of the company's revenue. The Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
upheld this statute in 1892.
In March of that year the constitutional amendment to renew the charter (which had passed the legislature, but needed voter approval) was defeated. Murphy Foster, an anti-lottery gubernatorial candidate, was elected, as were a majority of anti-lottery legislators. During that year all lottery operations were banned, the company excepted until its charter expired in December 1893.
Backed by John A. Morris, it then moved its de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....
headquarters
Headquarters
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
to Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and illegally issued lottery tickets in the United States. In 1907 its Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
was found out by federals and shut down.
External links
- The Lottery (Kendall's History of New Orleans, Chapter 31)
- Timeline mentioning the Lottery with dates
- Another timeline
- Information on U.S. Lotteries, Louisiana's is under "Lotteries Began a Comeback"
- Information on Louisiana with details on the company (PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
)