When did lotteries start? I don't remember the beginning, but I was here at the time. in Ontario is was in 1975 with the establishment of the Ontario Lottery Corp. The Canada-wide lottery, Canada Lotto 6/49 started in 1982.
Is the history of lotteries fascinating? It doesn't seem so to me. China seems to be the origin in 205 BC or so. But is that fascinating? Mostly lottery history is about scams and cheating by the lottery owners so that lotteries got banned. Maybe scamming is what is fascinating about lotteries. So many ways and methods.
There must have been some optimism in the 1960s that governments could keep things honest and legal. The Irish Sweepstakes shows up as the first modern lottery. It was introduced in 1963 and could be played around the world. It was so popular that it didn't take long for other countries and governments to take note.
Government-run Lotteries rationalize their existence by allocating funds to public causes and organizations. Here's how Ontario works it:
$2.36 billion: Net Profit to the Province, of which $2.2 billion went to the operation of hospitals and other provincial priorities and the balance earmarked to problem gambling prevention, treatment and research, local and provincial charities and Ontario’s amateur athletes
$265.6 million: in commissions paid to lottery retailers across Ontario
$199.4 million: for goods and services purchased from Ontario businesses to support gaming facilities operated by OLG
$146.3 million: to municipalities and First Nations that host gaming facilities and Charitable Gaming Centres
$137.3 million: to Ontario First Nations through the Gaming Revenue Sharing and Financial Agreement
$36.4 million: in Charitable Gaming proceeds distributed to participating local charities
$2.5 million: to community festivals and events
The story of lottery scams remains current. There are many types of scams and many people engaged in scamming. There is advice on how to avoid the many scams, so the articles are long. There are lottery defeater scams where the promise is that a secret system will help people win the lottery. There are the fraudsters who make fraudulent claims to a lottery ticket. A version of that is called "hijacking".
What really gets our attention is the possibility of winning so much money. And where would the biggest win of all times be? It would be the U.S. The largest lottery jackpot to date, a Powerball drawing, was won on Nov. 7, 2022. On Feb. 14, 2023, California Lottery officials revealed the name of the winner, Edwin Castro, but did not release further information about him at his request. And the amount was the record-breaking $2.05 billion US. In the U.S. there are various ways of cashing the winnings. Mr. Castr chose the single lump sum of $997.6 million. Oops! He had to pay taxes, too.
I asked the AI tool in photoshop to complete the little orange koi fish. Here's one of its offerings. I've tried this about a dozen times now. It wants great big orange fish in the picture.
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