Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1829. City gamblers queue up for lottery tickets at convenience stores -- even in 1829

Providence gamblers did not need to go far to get their fill of lottery tickets in 1829.

The first issue of The Providence Daily Journal, and General Advertiser, carried ads for nine separate shops seeking to separate the would-be lucky from their money. The lottery announcements were among the largest display ads appearing in the paper that day.

A shop known by the emblem hanging over its door, The Sign of the White Mice, was typical of lottery dealers.

"Don't neglect to call at one of the luckiest offices in the world," the White Mice ad beckoned.

The lotteries offered at the various shops were all government sponsored. They ranged from the Rhode Island State Lottery, drawn in Providence, to lotteries for Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania and the federal city of Washington.

Unlike state lotteries of 2004, which generally pump money into state coffers to be divvied up by the legislature, lotteries in 1829 were for specific purposes. Beneficiaries of the 1829 lotteries included a bridge project, a canal project, a retreat for the insane and the first Ecclesiastical Society in Canaan, Conn.

Courtesy of Russell DeSimone

This lottery ticket dated 1829 was for the Grand State Lottery in Rhode Island, a consolidated lottery that was not used for one specific purpose. The secretary of state was required to be at the drawings to prevent wrongdoing.

Ticket prices were steep: $1 to $4, which would be about $17.50 to $70 in 2004 dollars.

And the payouts did not approach the multimillion-dollar jackpots of 2004. The top prizes advertised in the first issue of The Journal on July 21, 1829, ranged from $1,200 to $10,000. In 2004 dollars, that's about $20,000 to $175,000.