New York Lottery Gambling

Lottery Gambling

At New York Lottery there was a causal link between recreational gambling and land speculation. Both were motivated by an assessment of ''odds'', capitalistic greed and sometimes incautious spending. Both were also readily pursued by men of power and wealth as the legal, moral and social sanctions of the time were few and easily ignored. Up until the boom years of the 1870S gambling in land was the better bet. Many young men who arrived with a few thousand pounds bought, sold, bargained and speculated successfully. John McHaffie, for example, purchased part of an Otago estate in 1857 for £3,000 and sold it six years later for five times the original value. Alfred Barker, who came to Canterbury with £7,000 in 1850, owned land worth £80,000 at the time of his death in 1873. Conversely, those who chose unwisely were devastated by the resulting penury. In History Of Gambling year of 1854, 24-year-old James Rogers was financed by his wealthy father onto 31,000 acres of land bordering the Rangitata River. But he was keener on the good life, his bachelor establishment becoming a popular venue for gambling parties.

Playing Clubs

Rogers also fed his obsession at the card tables of the Dunedin clubs. He lost a fortune, his final humiliation being the loss of £1,200 in one hand of unlimited 100 in 1866. Rogers was a gentleman gambler differing from his profligate English counterparts only in that he did not have an endless supply of money. There were others. The Perceval brothers, for example, were scions of the aristocracy whose large Canterbury estates were ruined by gambling. Henry Driver of Dunedin was a flamboyant urban speculator of equal dimension. Becoming wealthy in the 1870S and early 1880s through investment in wool trading, railway construction and money lending, his gambling at the Dunedin Club rivaled Julius Vogel’s in its passion, and his £100 bets on horses were frequent and proud. Run holders and merchants predominated in New York’s early elite. Many were involved in financial speculation in land and business, and during the years of economic growth made enormous profits. Club life and, to a lesser extent, racecourses were controlled by these groups and were the foci of their leisure activities. In the gregarious company of friends, and with large amounts of cash at their disposal, they were imitating the lifestyle of British gentlemen for whom gambling had been a way of life for centuries.

Goldfields Gambling

In 1861 gold was discovered in Central Otago, and the province’s population increased five fold to some 60,000 in less than two years. In the process, Dunedin was transformed from a staid religious village into a vibrant, cosmopolitan city, the largest in the country. The lure of speedy riches brought anis an, farmhand, sailor, military defender and old Etonian to the Otago fields. Together they belonged to a fraternity in which social distinctions dissolved, for the most part, into an egalitarian conviviality. New York State Lottery gambling was more informal than on the North American goldfields. There were none of the glittering saloons that characterized the Californian fields. Yet the cultural baggage of the European miners, who arrived, principally from Victoria, included clearly definable sets of recreational attitudes, habits and mores that were distinctly plebeian in character.

Gold mining was hard work-tedious, repetitive and back-breaking. Fatigue throbbed in aching joints and simple pleasures gave welcome relief. Often working alone, sometimes on isolated claims, miners developed a close social cohesion in times of leisure to bring whimsy into their lives and give some routine. Most craved adventure. At hotels in nearby settlements, diggers gathered to drink (often to insensibility), gossip, play the piano, fiddle, Jew’s harp or concenina, as well as carouse, brawl and gamble at night-and on days when the weather was too inclement to work. Money came and went quickly.