Evening star., 1932-10-02
Lotteries Le7y Heavy Toll in United States

A MERICAN seekers after easy money" are
the regular prey Of INSCRIPTIONS operators
of lotteries in foreign countries who levy
annual toll, the extent Of which can only be
guessed but which must run into many millions
of dollars annually
The only available figures are those which
show what has been kept from the lottery
operators by the vigilance of the Post Once
Department. According to Horace j. Donnelly,
solicitor of the department more than 81 .000,-
600 900 sent through the mails to known opera
tors OF lotteries has been intercepted and
turned back to the investors by means OF
fraud orders of the department
Many of the lotteries have been found upon
investigation to be out -and-out fakes, with the
promoters receiving the entire investment, being
themselves the lucky holders of all the winning
tickets, If the farce of drawing has been
carried out
The extent to which the lottery system has
spread out in this country is startling. The
agents not only work in the cities but even
work their way through rural areas. where
hopeful If foolish, individuals part with their
hard learned dollars for tickets which are sup
posed to yield them up into the tens or hum
dreds of thousands Of dollars if they should be
the lucky holders of winning numbers.
The Post Office Department in the past two
years alone has issued fraud orders against
1857 persons and concerns acting as central
agents for foreign lotteries. If that many
central agents are irf> operation, consider how
many local agents must be at work all over
the country coaxing away the dollars with
visions of 1,ooo-to-1, 1o0ooto-1 and greater
profits
Because Of the vigilance of the Post Office
Department and the severe penalties for viola
ton of the anti-lottery laws few promoters Of
lotteries operate in this country. Their
activities are largely centered in Canada,
Mexico Cuba and European countries The
postal inspectors have traced the activities
of the local agents to large operators in 80
different countries.
Millions of lottery tickets mailed into
this country from foreign sources but usually
the postal officials are able to detect them and
to prevent delivery to individuals The whole
sale shipment for use of local agents is more
difficult to detect.
The post Office inspectors have developed
means of detecting the individual maings of
tickets, and this system is highly successful.
In addition, many who receive lottery tickets
which escape the vigilance of the officials re-
port to the post Office in their home city, with
the result that hurried investigation is made
and fraud order issued
One instance in which a wholesale shipper
was trapped involved the smuggling of tickets
from Ireland. The package purported to
tain book on the life of famous divine, but
upon inspection the book was found to be hol-
low With center packed tight with lottery tick
cts. The book carried the address of a man
who claimed to be clergyman, but, cleric or
not, fraud order was issued against his ad-
dress.
more difficult method of smuggling to pre-
vent discovery involves the entry into this coun-
try of agents for the lottery syndicate who
bring the tickets into the United States and
then mail them here for delivery to those on
the sucker list" This method while success
full in bringing the tickets in is not successful
In bringing cash return to the lottery group.