Winning the lottery has a long and ancient history. The word “lottery” comes from the Italian “lotto”, meaning fate or destiny. Many lottery games in the English speaking world are generally known as lotto games. How Exactly To win the bookie lottery online has been a world wide question for hundreds, even thousands of years.

Lotteries have an ancient, venerable and somewhat checkered history. There are numerous biblical references to the drawing of lots to award ownership and in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 26, Moses uses a lottery to award land west of the River Jordan. In the New Testament, Roman soldiers drew lots to determine who would get Jesus’ cloak after the crucifixion.

In 100 BC, the Hun Dynasty in China created the lottery game referred to as Keno. Most of the funds raised were used to finance the construction of the great Wall, intended as a perimeter defense. Winning the lottery was less important than defending the country.

The first recorded European lottery was held in 1446 by the widow of the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck to dispose of his remaining paintings. Winning this lottery would have given you a prize worth mega millions today!

Encyclopedia Britannica states that the lottery once we know it dates back to 15th century France where it was used by individual towns to raise money for strengthening the town’s defenses (Europe has a solid tradition of citizens considering themselves as belonging to a city rather than a state or perhaps a country, by way of example, a citizen would think of him or herself as a Roman, rather than an Italian.) King Francis I of France allowed lotteries to use from 1520, as well as the first municipal lottery to offer money as a prize was La Lotto de Firenze, run through the city of Florence in 1530. Other towns in Italy soon followed suit.

In 1567, Queen Elizabeth I established the first English state lottery, with prizes including cash, gold and silver plate, and tapestries. 400,000 tickets were offered for sale. For a while, the best way to win the lottery was a question on all the citizens’ lips.

In 1612, King James I of England created a lottery in London by royal decree. The proceeds helped to finance the very first British colony in America at Jamestown, Virginia. Anglican churches held two of the three winning tickets within the first draw!

In the middle 18th century, a notable event occurred in France. As a result of the prospect of fixing the final results in privately operated lotteries, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725 – 1798) persuaded Louis XV of France to found the first state-owned monopoly lottery, the Loterie Royale of the armed service School, which became the forerunner of the Loterie Nationale. All the other lotteries in France were outlawed. The lottery was a Keno style game, where players could select 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 numbers between 1 and 90. (Incidentally, Casanova owned an interest within the new lottery and became wealthy so, but sold his interest shortly afterwards and lost the proceeds through unwise investments; sounds the same as some modern lottery winners, does not it?)