A Very Rich Lotterie Generall: The Debacle of Queen Elizabeth I's National Lottery of 1567
On August 23, 1567 a young Queen Elizabeth I of England issued a Royal Proclamation. She decreed that there would be held: A VERY RICH LOTTERIE GENERALL WITHOUT ANY BLANKES. Instantly, on the heels of the Queen’s Proclamation, hundreds of posters five feet high and twenty inches wide advertising both ticket prices and the potential prizes that could be won were plastered on doorways and walls throughout London. Lottery broadsheets detailing how tickets could be bought were rushed into print and passed from hand to hand among England’s aristocracy. Queen Elizabeth’s decree established the first national lottery in the history of the western world and it was this “Lotterie Generall” that is the true antecedent to all major lotteries that are held on a weekly basis throughout the world today. Each ticket for Queen Elizabeth’s lottery cost ten shillings, or about the equivalent of a year’s wages for the average laborer in 1567. First prize was to be 5000 Pou...