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In 1964, New Hampshire unveiled a statewide lottery, which remains the oldest legal lottery in the U.S. While 44 additional states have since debuted lottos of their own, there are still five states where playing the lottery is illegal: Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah.
For Alabama and Utah, the anti-lottery stance has religious roots, as some influential church leaders believe gambling to be sinful behavior. Back in 1998, incoming Alabama Governor Don Siegelman voiced his support for a statewide lotto to help raise funds for education — but that idea was struck down by voters in a 1999 referendum, an outcome that is largely attributed to vocal opposition from church groups. In Utah, an estimated 42% of the population is Mormon, a religious ideology opposed to gambling. Due to these demographics, the pro-lottery movement in Utah has made little progress.
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It's a factWhile there are traces of lotteries in ancient history, the first documented national lottery with characteristics similar to present-day lottos was in Bruges, Belgium, in 1441. The oldest continuously operating state lottery is in the Netherlands, where the Staatsloterij has run since 1726.
According to an article from Alaska’s News Source, Alaskan lawmakers worry instituting a lottery would “have some negative impact on current state-regulated charitable gaming activities,” which help support many local nonprofits. As for Hawaii, there are concerns that the lottery may disproportionately affect poor communities and encourage addiction, which is why it’s still illegal despite widespread public support. Then there’s Nevada, which instituted a ban on selling lottery tickets when its state constitution was written back in 1864. That provision is still in place today and is likely to stay due to the Silver State’s powerful casino lobby, which considers the state lottery competition and opposes any efforts to make it legal.
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The first English monarch to hold a state lottery was ______.
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The first English monarch to hold a state lottery was Elizabeth I.
A Romanian economist won the lottery 14 times.
Stefan Mandel is a statistical genius who won the lottery an astonishing 14 times, all due to his clever strategy: printing tickets at home and then buying them in bulk. Mandel figured out that in order to win, you had to calculate every possible number combination and then raise enough cash to buy millions of tickets with those numbers. Once he’d secured the money, Mandel printed the tickets and delivered them to authorized lottery vendors for purchase, after which he waited until his winning number was inevitably called.
After winning multiple jackpots in Romania and Australia, Mandel set his sights on the Virginia state lottery in 1992. He established the International Lotto Fund and gathered money from 2,560 investors, then hired 16 employees to print millions of tickets. In the end, Mandel found himself in possession of a winning ticket worth $27,036,142 (around $60 million today). While he was later subject to several investigations, he was found to have committed no legal wrongdoing and was ultimately awarded the money he won.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism Media, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
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