New York Lottery Operation

The Operation

As the arguments about profit distribution and New York State Lottery raged about their heads, Hammond and McArthur continued on their quietly efficient way. Each lottery required much organization: deciding on a title, procuring guarantees, preparing the permit application, handling the publicity campaign, distributing books to hundreds of agents, collecting the butts and arranging the drawings all took considerable effort. In the early days, drawings were noteworthy social occasions. Gwen Merrett of the New York Observer was eloquent in her description of the people who attended the drawing of the March 1933 Lucky Strike Art Union in the Auckland Town Hall. Some of the faces were happily agog, ready to be pleased at anyone’s good luck; some were over bright with anxiety blent with a desperate hope. Others expressed excited optimism. ''My turn now'', said one as her eyes glittered a hard acquisitiveness. There were neat, narrow-eyed, and very still yellow men; there were opulent, corpulent and sometimes somnolent Maoris; there was a scattering of fresh-frocked, fresh-faced flappers, who doubtless had bought their tickets in gay speculation...

But most of the faces were very middle-aged and worn, and some were sadly old men; men and women who had somehow missed. A little Darby and Joan (old age pensioners, surely) sat close together in that big assembly; her withered cheek and eager lips that repeated the numbers in his good ear, almost touching the silky white beard; and near them, pale, shaking hands upon a heavily knob bled cane, sat a rheumy-eyed stalwart, still wearing an air with his faded check coat bearing the stamp of a sportsman of an elder age in the wrap-over of his sorry stock, and the gleaming welled jockey who galloped athwart it, mounted on the gold pin that was probably a memento of a happier day when chance had smiled on a gambler born. Alert and bovine, washed and unwashed, they all camped on the Yukon Trail, drawn by that magnet, gold.

Gamble with Tickets

At the New York Lottery seven small tables lined the stage. Bertie Hammond called for twelve volunteers from the audience to attend six of the tables; the seventh, nearest the barrel, was occupied by two government scrutinizers who sat under the gaze of the police sergeant whose job it was to spin the barrel at the appointed time. On each table was a colored bag which held a number of balls. The scarlet bag on the top table held five balls, each marked with a letter between ''if and ''E'', signifying the section a ticket belonged to. McArthur stood with a small tray-like container at the top of the line. At his word, the first volunteer drew the first marble-for example ''D''; in turn, the next five volunteers drew numerals from their colored bags to finish the set. McArthur gathered each of the drawn numbers and placed them in order on the tray-''D35972''. An official controlling the master register then checked the number and status of the ticket, and McArthur displayed his tray to the scrutinizers. The sergeant swung the barrel, opened its slide, withdrew a number and handed it to McArthur. If it was 53, for example, the holder of ticket ''D35972'' had won the 53rd prize. An assistant obtained from the register the butt-book containing the number of bet and McArthur marched to the front of the podium to read out the winner’s name.