Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1

I was wondering if these old tickets from the 60's were collectable.

 

Peter

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Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1

Some research might help. What state? Any idea what year? Conventional paper ticket?

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Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1

Hi Siddleswan, Thanks for the reply.

 

I remember buying it in Sydney around 1968, yes it is a conventional paper ticket.

 

Regards  Peter

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Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1

There is ahistory of NSW lotteries here -

 

http://investigator.records.nsw.gov.au/Entity.aspx?Path=\Agency\1124

 

So far as I can see it doesn't mention a $10 ticket.

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Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1

The Opera House Lottery tickets cost £5 each and had a first prize of £100,000 but that began during the late 1950s, while decimal currency wasn't introduced until 1966, so while the ticket in question may have some curiosity value, I can't really see it having any real value to a collector.

Crikey, I just had a quick look at the above link and the first lottery was held way back in August 1931 and was specifically introduced to provide the State Govt with additional revenue to assist with the funding of state hospitals (same reason that Qld introduced lotteries).
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Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1


@cq_tech wrote:
Crikey, I just had a quick look at the above link and the first lottery was held way back in August 1931 and was specifically introduced to provide the State Govt with additional revenue to assist with the funding of state hospitals (same reason that Qld introduced lotteries).

 

 

I know a bit about lottery history in NSW now, as I will shortly be re-listing a "Lucky Fred" lottery charm.

 

Basically, Lucky Fred sold “shares” in lottery tickets – you sent him 2/6 and you received  a minor share (1/5 or 1/10 share depending on the size of the syndicate) of whatever prize/s your ticket syndicate won. And of course you also got your “Lucky Fred” charm pin which “guaranteed” you future good luck. Despite the pitfalls involved in sending money to a stranger, asking him to purchase tickets on your behalf, and relying on him to forward you your winnings, many thousands of people responded to Lucky Fred’s newspaper advertisements.  The selling of shares in lottery tickets was outlawed by act of Parliament in July 1933, when the State introduced the granting of licences for lottery agents. Not before (one suspects) Lucky Fred became a very rich man.

 

All this discovered through Mr Google and the wonderful Trove website. That's really what I like about selling on eBay - you learn something new every day. (As opposed to eBay teaching you something every day Smiley Sad.)

 

 

Lucky Fred.jpg

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Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1

I have to wonder how Lucky Fred made his money if he was sharing the prizes equitably and providing the winners with exact shares in the advertised prizes. There's no mention of his taking a commission although one would assume that he'd have to (or perhaps he made all of his profit by selling his charms instead).

Or maybe he was a crook who only paid a proportion of prizes to his winners. I wonder how many people actually checked the lottery draws to see if they'd won or not? Whatever the rort, it was probably a good thing that the govt legislated against dodgy buggers like Lucky Fred when they did. Interesting bit of history though. 🙂
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Ten Dollar Lottery Ticket from draw no 1

Probably from what I understand, no-one actually got a ticket (remember they were part of a syndicate), or in fact knew what ticket number their syndicate got. By mail they got "a share" - which probably only showed them the lottery number. They were probably totally relying on the honesty of Lucky Fred to let them know whether they had won or not. The little charm I have is Registered No10293 - no way of knowing if that was early or late in Lucky Fred's career. There is likely to have been further skullduggery - W H Whiddon was at the time of "Lucky Fred's" campaign the Director of NSW Lotteries, and after resigning his position went into business with "Lucky Fred" as a lottery syndicator. While he was in charge, how easy to "select" the winning ticket, give out a couple of thousand - who knows whether the other names listed as prize winners even existed? Or in fact whether the winning women shown were not Lucky Fred's relatives / friends on a retainer? One way or another, what is certain is that "Lucky Fred" would have been making money - remember tickets were 5/3 and you sent 2/6 for a 5th share or 1/6 for a 10th share. So at the very least he was doubling his money for every ticket he had to buy (if he in fact bought any). As we know, the odds against winning the lottery was 1 in 100,000 - the odds against winning 2 in a fortnight????? VERY Lucky Fred. The fact that within 2 years the Government moved to make such lottery share syndicates illegal speaks for itself. (Though no doubt the Govt could see a further source of revenue in the granting of licences for lottery agents.)

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