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This is your
hyperlinks lottery. What you basically got is this bit a writing, with
almost every word a link to a different site, so when you click on the text
you get whisked away to a destination (website) not of your choice. It's
crazy crazy crazy! Crazy. Just like the good lottery you have very little
chance of getting anything good. Don't cheat by looking at that writing in
the bottom corner of the screen which tells you where the links go to,
because that would spoil the er... fun.
I
INTRODUCTION
Lottery
(prizewinning),
drawing of lots
for the
distribution of prizes,
usually
money, to the winners
among those who purchase a chance.
A lottery is
considered a form of gambling,
because the value of the prize
is greater than
the cost of the ticket,
and no skill is involved in winning.
II
HISTORY
Lotteries are
of ancient origin;
they were used in the
entertainments
of the Roman emperors and
later of the feudal
princes of Europe.
The first state lottery is believed to have
been held in 1520
in France, where
lotteries
became an
important source of
royal revenue.
Private
lotteries also flourished in
France until
1776, when all
were suppressed or
merged into the royal lottery.
In Italy,
lotteries became popular
after 1530,
when
the city of Florence
held one offering
money prizes. The
lottery was introduced in
England in
1569 under the
patronage of Queen
Elizabeth I. In
the American colonies
lotteries were
authorized by
the colonial legislatures
to
raise funds
for such public purposes as
the paving of streets,
the construction of
wharves, and the erection of churches.
Lotteries suffered a decline in the
19th century. The
frequency of fraud in
the operation of private
lotteries resulted in
their prohibition by
many countries, and subsequently
most public lotteries
also were discontinued.
Great Britain
ceased to
employ the lottery as
a source of public revenue
in 1826. France
abolished its
national
lottery in 1836.
III
REVENUE-RAISING DEVICES
Lotteries were still being used in the 20th century by
some governments and by charitable and religious
institutions to
raise revenue. Spain, Italy, Japan, and a number of other countries hold
public lotteries;
France reinstituted its national lottery in 1933 as
did Great Britain in 1994. During World War II the Union
of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR) promoted the sale of bonds by giving away a
lottery ticket with each
bond purchase.
The new British
National Lottery, launched in November 1994, is the latest example of
lotteries taking advantage of new technology. At launch around 10,000
computer terminals, distributed across various retailers throughout Great
Britain, were linked together, with many thousands more expected to be added
over time. At its launch, the organizers of the
National Lottery anticipated that around £32 billion would be raised over a
seven year period. A notable feature of the UK
National
Lottery is the explicit allocation of a proportion of the revenues for
charities and other good causes: 28 pence of every £1 lottery
ticket will
be split evenly between charities, the arts,
the national
heritage, the Millennium Commission, and sport. Various bodies have been
established to receive claims from those eligible to apply, and it is likely
that the
National Lottery will become one of the largest sources of funds for
charities and the other "good causes" in Great Britain.
A popular fund-raising
activity of Churches, fraternal organizations, trade unions, and social
clubs is the type of lottery known as a raffle. Another form of lottery, the
numbers game, is illegally operated in some United States urban centres by
organized syndicates. Each day participants place wagers on numbers of
several digits chosen by the bettors; the winning number is selected from
published figures such as the daily total of dollars legally bet at a
designated racetrack. |
