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CROOKED FLORIDA LOTTERIES

Before 1895, in states where lotteries were legal there were usually american lotteries regulations demanding that lottery operators be of unquestionable character and reputation before being issued a license. There were then no such restrictions on the many illegal operators, who often set up business with scarcely enough money to print their first batch of tickets. Hundreds of lotteries of various sorts sprang up overnight operated by crooks, confidence men and cheats who did a booming florida lottery business.

Many, in an attempt to avoid Florida's Federal prosecution, followed the practice of their English contemporaries and called their lotteries by other names: Keno, raffles, pools, sweepstakes and the like. Some foreign lotteries also now began selling their tickets in the United States.

The American operators seldom held any drawings and those they did hold were almost always rigged, especially when they advertised cash awards of $50,000, $100,000, $300,000 and sometimes more. I can’t imagine an illegal lottery of that period actually paying anyone a cash prize of more than $100.

As an illustration of how these crooked Florida Lottery - Know Lotto Opponents lotteries were run, let me tell you about a lottery operator I met during the early 1920s at a time when this country was being flooded with millions of crooked lottery tickets.

In 1923, I was playing a four-month engagement as a magician at a Mexican night club in Tijuana, where I became well acquainted with a man who called himself Doe Peters and who often sat at a ringside table watching my act. Everyone, including the Doe himself, told me that he was the operator of the Tijuana lottery, the foremost of the day, and that Doe’s offices on the second floor of the club were where his American agents came to turn in their state lottery cash and obtain another month’s supply of tickets. I stuck close to Doe because I knew that I might never again have the opportunity to get the real inside story of crooked lotteries from one of the masters.

One evening, after my last show, Doe invited me upstairs and asked me to do some card tricks for a group of about 20 men. I did these for an hour or so and stayed on until the others had gone. As I was about to leave the Doe said, ‘Wait a minute, I want to show you something,” and he took me into an adjoining room lined with shelves which were filled with stacks of lottery tickets.

“You must have at least a hundred thousand florida lottery tickets there,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied, “but that’s nothing. The boys who just left took the big bulk with them. They are my top promoters in the States—from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, all the big cities. They cover the country for me. But that wasn’t what I wanted to show you. I’ve got a proposition for you. You’ve entertained my friends and business associates several times and I want you to know I appreciate it.”

“That’s okay, Doe,” I said. “I enjoy it and besides it keeps me in texas lottery practice. “ Doe went to a big safe, opened it and took out a large suitcase. He placed it on a table and threw back the lid. It was quite a sight. The case was filled to the brim with untracked greenbacks.

“That,” Doe said, “is the money those boys just turned in from ticket sales in the States. Can you guess how much is there?”