New York Lottery History

The Second World War

In the New York State Lottery September 1939 heralded a rerun of 1914. Young men volunteered eagerly for military service. They went to camp, trained and, in January 1940, sailed for the Middle East. As before, ''chewing the fat'', drinking and gambling dominated their spare time. The nature of the games had not changed either: cards (poker, pontoon, and slippery sam), two-up and crown-and anchor all maintained their popularity.There was, however, one noteworthy difference. In the earlier war officers had done their best to stop troops gambling because it was ''injurious to morale''; during the Second World War, although anti-gambling regulations still existed (crown-and-anchor operators, for example, could have been jailed for 80 days) they were only rarely enforced. Officers realized that gambling’s recreational worth made it good for morale. Officers knew that the ranks gambled; it was, in the words of one of their number from 23 Battalion, 2NZEF, ''an inevitable concomitant for idleness. These were minor peccadilloes. What we did do was discourage high-stake gambling, but many officers also gambled to a certain extent, mostly at cards and at the race-tracks. Many soldiers gambled constantly. That was unsurprising. What was more notable was the intensity with which many of the games were played (it was not all fun), the professionalism of some of the operators and the startling amounts of money that changed hands, given that a private earned just over £2 a week.

Wartime Gambling

Wartime gambling began in training. Clandestine two-up schools proliferated in paddocks adjacent to Burnham and Waiouru military camps, while card games were played at night. Recruits ran bookmaking operations on horse races covered by local radio stations. One private at Burnham ran card and crown-and-anchor games in a room in the barracks away from the main block. He had a spiller’s patter, ran a ''clean'' operation, was well-patronized and worked seemingly unhindered. Another made up to £90 a night running poker schools in the boiler house of Brenham’s Delta Camp in 1942.On troopships, gambling operators made good use of their leisure time. Official wartime historians, when they did refer to gambling, did so obliquely or euphemistically. Action on the Aquitaine was typical. It sailed to England in May 1940 with the Maori Battalion on board. The battalion’s official historian recorded that the only gambling permitted was housie but, he wrote, ''it is suggested-not without reason-that of an evening throughout the ship many strange and illegal cults could be heard reciting a formula which included "Heads a pair" and "Two B's on bikes", presided over by a tohunga''.

Gambling Operators

At the New York Lottery crown-and-anchor was the easiest game for a gambling operator to control for his own benefit. Astute setting and quick changing of the odds often resulted in large profits. One 1943 reinforcement went absent without leave with, reputedly, £1,000 in his pocket, the winnings from his crown-and-anchor operation. He was later court-martial-not for gambling, but for desertion.
Twenty-year-old Bill Sullivan, who embarked in 1940 with 21 Battalion on the Empress of Japan, carried with him £500 from running a book and dealing on the black market. With three confederates, he wasted no time. Establishing a crown-and-anchor game that lasted all the way to Liverpool. The men took it in turns to run daily two-hour sessions during recreational periods. While one man ran the board, the other recorded the bets and paid out winnings. Look-outs were paid £2 to guard a session, and a non-playing sergeant a little more, for ''insurance'' purposes.