Gambling - insuring your tickets!

Chapter VI. **

**Gambling - Lotteries

The intense passion of the Irish for gambling has often been observed. Campion, writing nearly three hundred years ago, mentions it, and notices a class, called Carrowes, whose only occupation all the year long was playing at cards. He describes them as gambling away their mantles and all their clothes, and then lying down in their bare skins in straw by the roadside, to invite passers-by to play with them for their glibbes, their nails, their toes, and even more important parts of their bodies, which they lost or redeemed at the courtesy of the winner. It was not uncommon, in some places, to play for salt herrings; and as it was a point of honour to *eat *the stake, the player suffered by losing, but a parching thirst was the only reward of winning. Card-playing is, at this day, indulged in by the Irish peasantry, and is often the parent of many vices.

This national propensity led to the most frightful excesses during the first Government lotteries. Those very unwise and immoral devices for raising money were hot-beds for the growth of the passion in Dublin, where the humbler classes indulged in gambling with a frantic eagerness unknown in any other place. The mode which they adopted was what was called “insuring” a ticket; and it was even still more prompt and exciting than the purchase of one. An adventurer presented himself at the lottery-office during the days of drawing, and selected, among the undrawn tickets, a particular number, upon which he “insured” -i.e., he laid a wager with the office-keeper that it would be drawn next day, or some particular day, or would be a blank or a prize, as the case might be.

The risk was in proportion to the number of undrawn tickets; but it was so managed that the odds were usually silver to gold; thus, if five shillings were deposited, and the insurer won, he would get five guineas. These bets were made so low as a shilling, so that it was within the reach of every person to try his fortune. Lucky and unlucky numbers occupied the attention, and filled the minds of the citizens with omens and visions of success; a speculator walking the streets, if he accidentally met an object he thought lucky, would run directly to the lottery-office, and insure some number indicated by it; when once the insurance was effected, it was not in the power of the fascinated man to rest as long as his number remained in the wheel; he went on increasing his premium while he had anything to pledge or sell.

The lottery-hall was in Capel-street, which was every day choked up by the crowds of adventurers eager to hear their fate. The multitude of these unhappy beings, and the anxiety and distraction they displayed, was sometimes appalling. All industry was suspended; a number was to be insured at any risk, though the means were secured by pawning, selling, or robbery; every faculty seemed absorbed in watching the chance of the number when procured; all the excesses that have been attributed to gambling in a few of the upper classes, were here displayed by the whole population; the scenes that shock an observer in the privacy of a gaming-house were of common occurrence in the public streets

• the cheer of success and the groan of rain, the wildness of exultation and the frenzy of despair, were daily to be witnessed. The man who was honest before became a thief, that he might have the means of insuring. The very beggars allocated their alms to this fascinating pursuit. A poor blind creature used to beg in Sackville-street, and attracted the notice of passengers by her silent and unobtrusive manners and cleanly appearance. She had a little basket with articles for sale, covered with a net, and received more alms than an ordinary beggar. She dreamed of a number that was to make her fortune; next day was led to a lottery-office, and insured it. It was not drawn, and she lost; but convinced that it to make her fortune she still persevered in insuring it. Her little store was soon exhausted; she sold her clothes, and pledged her basket; but her number still stuck in the wheel, and when she had nothing left she was obliged to desist. She still, however, inquired after the number, and found it had been drawn the very day she ceased to insure it. She groped her way to the Royal Canal, and threw herself into it.

The hall in which the drawings took place was open to the public. Two large wheels were set on a elope, beside which stood two boys of the Blue Coat Hospital, each with one hand thrust into his belt behind his back, and the other flourishing in the air; on every turn of the wheels they dived in and took a rolled-up packet from each, one containing a number, and the other a blank or prize; one clerk then read the number aloud, and another declared its fate. This hall was usually crowded with persons anxious to know their own or their friends’ fortunes. So absorbing was the interest connected with everything belonging to the lottery, that it is said an impostor made a considerable sum of money by exhibiting himself for a shilling admittance, in Capel-street, as the person who got a £20,000 prize.

The misery and vice caused by this species of gambling evoked some strong remonstrances, and many memorials to Government; but the ministers of the day were reluctant to forego the trifling advantage of a loan without interest, for the short period for which a lottery procured it - the only benefit derived from this demoralizing device. The practices above described were, however, prohibited by the legislature, and the insurance of tickets made penal in 1793; and several wholesome regulations and restrictions were introduced, which very much ameliorated and modified the evils of subsequent state lotteries.

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