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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

 CHAPTER XIII. page 20

_PRIVATE_ lotteries are now illegal at Common Law in Great
Britain and Ireland; and penalties are also incurred by the
advertisers of _FOREIGN_ lotteries. Some years ago it became
common in Scotland to dispose of merchandise by means of
lotteries; but this is specially condemned in the statute 42 Geo.
III. c. 119. An evasion of the law has been attempted by
affixing a prize to every ticket, so as to make the transaction
resemble a legal sale; but this has been punished as a fraud,
even where it could be proved that the prize equalled in value
the price of the ticket. The decision rested upon the plea that
in such a transaction there was no definite sale of a specific
article. Even the lotteries; for Twelfth Cakes, &c., are
illegal, and render their conductors liable to the penalties of
the law. Decisive action has been taken on this law, and the
usual Christmas lotteries have been this year (1870) rigorously
prohibited throughout the country. It is impossible to doubt the
soundness of the policy that strives to check the spirit of
gambling among the people; but still there may be some truth in
the following remarks which appeared on the subject, in a
leading journal:--

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