the evil of insuring, and the mischievous subdivision of the shares of tickets, passed an Act for the regulation of lottery offices, by which it was enacted that every office-keeper should pay £50 for a licence, and give tangible security not to infringe any part of the Act; that no smaller portion of any ticket than a sixteenth should be disposed of under a penalty of £50; that any person disposing of goods or merchandise upon any chance relating to the drawing of any ticket should be liable to a fine of £20; and that all shares should be stamped at an office established under the said Act, the original tickets being kept at the office till after the drawing. Many other regulations were made in the same law, and in the following year the question was again subject of legislation; but notwithstanding all the efforts of the Commons, the ruinous practice of insuring was still conducted with dexterity and great profit by the office-keepers. This is one of their plans for evading the law:—
November 7, 1781.
Mode of Insurance,
WHICH continues the whole Time of drawing the Lottery, at CARRICK’S STATE LOTTERY OFFICE, King’s Arms, 72, Threadneedle Street. At one Guinea each NUMBERS are taken, to return three Twenty Pound Prizes, value Sixty Pounds, for every given Number that shall be drawn any Prize whatever above Twenty Pounds during the whole drawing.
Numbers at half a Guinea to receive half the above.*
And here is another of about the same date, which openly violates the spirit if not the letter of the law:—
J. COOK respectfully solicits the Public will favour the following incomparably advantageous plan with attention, by which *upwards