程阳：LOTTERY MUSEUM

For almost 400 years the lottery has played a significant role in American history. From 1612 to 1621, it provided the colonists at Jamestown about 8,000 pounds a year that helped them pay passage for many of the new settlers. In 1776, a lottery authorized by the Continental Congress brought in revenue that helped offset the high cost of the Revolutionary War.

Lotteries held during the decade following the war allowed Congress to repay foreign and domestic loans made to the United States in the interest of the Revolution. Before, during, and after the war, state legislatures authorized lotteries that paid for the construction of buildings at Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, and many other prestigious universities. In the 1790s lotteries subsidized state and private buildings in Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and New York.

For the next century lotteries built roads, bridges, railroads, and schools, as well as helping the poor, elderly, and destitute. Although lotteries were banned in the first half of the twentieth century because of isolated cases of fraud and abuse, community leaders and citizens never lost sight of the potential benefits of the lottery. In 1964, the lottery, protected by stringent legislation, re-emerged and once again this recreational "voluntary tax" provides revenues for public education, senior citizens, transportation, roads, and parks.

Because Scientific Games is a proud representative of the lottery legacy, it is also dedicated to the research, authentication, acquisition, and preservation of historical records and memorabilia pertaining to the lottery.

The Scientific Games Archive is the largest and most comprehensive of historic and modern American lottery memorabilia in private or public hands. It consists of more than 10,000 pieces including tickets, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, advertisements, account records, and personal letters. We are pleased to offer these exhibits from our collection here, in the online Lottery Museum.

First Lottery Terminals (1964)

New Hampshire Lottery Chairman, Howell Shepard, with lottery ticket agents at the first lottery terminals at Rockingham Park, New Hampshire, the site of the first lottery ticket sale and drawing in 1964. If you look very closely (bottom right corner) you can see that the first tickets sold for $3.00 apiece, making New Hampshire the true inventor of higher price point tickets.

Players were assigned horses and the winner determined by how their horse finished the race. Tickets were sold only at racetracks and liquor stores. Sales in 1964 were $5.7 million.

 New Hampshire Governor John W. King (at microphone) officiates at New Hampshire's first lottery drawing. To his right is Lou Smith of Rockingham Park and New Hampshire Lottery Executive Director Ed Powers.

First Lottery Drawing (1964)

The first modern lottery was launched in 1964 in New Hampshire. It was quickly followed by New York in 1967 and New Jersey in 1971. Since that time the industry has grown into a $45 billion a year business providing $14 billion to education and other good causes each year. Tickets are sold at 180,100 locations throughout the 41 US jurisdictions that permit lottery sales.

Lotteries take off (1970s)

New Jersey was the third state to authorize and create a state lottery. The first ticket was sold to Governor William T. Cahill in December of 1970. The lottery was an instant success, generating about $137 million in the first year. Today the lottery is the fourth largest source of income for the state after income, sales and corporate taxes, and has gross sales of about $2.1 billion

10 other states legalized state lotteries during the decade of the ‘70s.

Early lottery games had numbers preprinted on the ticket. In 1975, New Jersey was the first in the nation to allow players to choose their own numbers. This milestone changed the lottery industry forever. New Jersey was also the first to begin weekly, instead of monthly, draws. In 1975 New Jersey created another revolution by launching a legal, computerized numbers game. The illegal version of the game had thrived on the Eastern Seaboard, but the legal game virtually wiped it out.

Video Lottery Terminals(1970s)

Video Lottery Terminals or VLTs were introduced in 1982 to replace the mob-run so called “gray boxes” and steer more revenues to state governments. Today there are VLTs in five states and 16 other jurisdictions worldwide. Sales in the US total $16.4 billion, with $14 billion worth of prizes won in fiscal 2003 (ended June).

Today about a dozen states are considering VLT legislation to boost revenues. Essentially VLTs are the lottery version of slot machines and represent a more convenient way for slots fans to play their favorite game. VLTs offer fast play, low odds and excellent prize payouts – typically 89%, better than any other lottery-sponsored game.

Lotto Mania (1981)

New York started lotto mania in 1981 by launching the first computerized, 6/49 game with a $5 million jackpot. Lotto was an instant success. All of a sudden lotteries were competing to offer the biggest jackpots culminating in 1991 with California’s $118 million prize. It took seven years and the introduction of multi-state games to top that jackpot.
The other big event of the ‘80s was the introduction of Keno in New York and Michigan. In the beginning the draws were too far apart and the prizes too small so it got off to a slow start. Today Keno brings in $2.2 billion in sales.

Multi-State Games:

Lion II Terminal
Scientific Games’ original terminals were introduced in the 1980’s and called Lion II. First installed in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa and West Virginia, it was the first full color and animated consumer monitor. Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont joined together with Scientific Games to create the first multi-state game. In total, 18 states legalized lotteries in the 1980s.

Multi-State Games:

PATs
These Player Activated Terminals or PATs were the first to dispense both Lotto tickets and instant lottery tickets back in the 1980s. Afterwards the trend was toward instant ticket-only vending machines. Today’s most popular machines dispense both.

Vending machines are a very important distribution outlet for lotteries. Many more tickets can be sold by adding new stores from among those that previously did not to sell lottery products to the roster of retail outlets. Vending kiosks do not need training and they do not collect salaries. In addition, the new machines communicate directly with the lottery central system, virtually eliminating stockouts.