numbers game

A form of lottery. 34 Am J1st Lot § 7. A lottery, conducted under a system devised with more or less ingenuity to disguise the character of the enterprise. A lottery scheme wherein the proprietor sells for a specific sum, usually a few cents, certificates or tickets which entitle the purchaser to some article of trifling value, such as a lead pencil, and also permit him to select certain numbers, say 3-9-13, which, if all drawn by a blindfolded person from a revolving wheel in which several numbers have been placed, entitle the purchaser of the ticket or certificate to a money prize much larger in amount than the sum which he has paid for the ticket or certificate. State ex rel. Kellogg v Kansas Mercantile Asso. 45 Kan 351, 25 P 984. The "numbers game" in which each player places a bet, selects a number, and a winning number is determined by taking the first digit to the left of the decimal of the aggregate of prices paid for first, second, and third in each of the first three races at a certain race track, the holder of the winning number receiving a multiple of the amount of his play, is not a bet on a horse race, but a lottery, although the winning number is not determined by drawing. Forte v United States, 65 App DC 355, 83 F2d 612, 105 ALR 300. Where one chooses a number and pays a certain sum, and the seller draws from a box an envelope containing a slip with numbers on it, and if the number chosen is on the slip, the buyer receives a multiple of the sum paid, greater or less according to agreement, and if not, he loses what he has paid, the transaction is a lottery. Commonwealth v Wright, 137 Mass 250. A game in which the operator sells slips of paper containing three numbers with an agreement to pay a cash prize to holders of slips bearing numbers in sequence as they appear in a large number published daily in the press, such as the United States Treasury balance, is a lottery. Gilley v Commonwealth, 312 Ky 584, 229 SW2d 60, 19 ALR2d 1224.