NOVEL LOTTERY SCHEME.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17982, 28 January 1924, Page 3

NOVEL LOTTERY SCHEME.

<? DAILY TEMPERATURE READING. ' (PZIOIX OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SAN - -FRANCISCO, January 1. It is exceedingly difficult for the police authorities of American cities to cheek gambling and another method to defeat the powers that be has been evolved in the populous motor-car manufacturing city' of Detroit. It seems that an ingenious lottery, with the winning numbers derived from daily temperature readings, is being operated full blast in Detroit along with numerous gambling activities that the anti-gambling law has been powerless to stop. Tickets in the lottery known as' the "Mutual Weather Report.'/ are being sold in cigar stores, sott drink parlours, and "blind-pigs" throughout the city. Tickets cost half-a-crown apiece. On each ticket is a score card with a space for each day in the week except Sunday. The tickets are numbered serially. Official temperatures are taken by the United States Weather Bureau at 6" a.m., 9 a.m., and 3 p.m. The last digits of each temperature reading, placed one after the other form a day's winning number. The holder of the ticket corresponding to that number or nearest to it wins the daily capital prize of 100 dollars. On Saturdays there is a special prize of 500.dollars. Winnings are paid wherever the holder of the ticket bought it. As an example, if to-day's temperatures were 5-i. 60, 08, and 72, the winning number would be 4082. In addition, there are 20 daily prizes ranging from 10 dollars to 20 dollars, based on the nearest numbers above and below the winning one. There are also nine so-called "terminal prizes" of 3 dollars awarded to ticket-holders the last three digits of whose serial numbers coincide with the winning number. The aggregate prizes in the daily list is about 2C5 dollars, while on Saturday 853 dollars is paid in prizes. The total amount of prize-money which would have to be' paid each week would be about 2178 dollars, which, in addition to cost of X>rinted matter, commissions to agents and profits to the promoters, provided the scheme is :conducted on the square and the prizes really paid, would necessitate the selling of more than 5000 of the tickets each week at least. Some time ago a similar scheme was in operation in various cities, the figures being taken from the daily bank clearings. At one time newspapers in some of the cities printed only the round numbers of the bank clearings in order to defeat tie gambling scheme, and they are still doing it. It is claimed that a "ring" is operating the scheme in a number of American cities, including Detroit, and that the tickets are printed out of town, and despatched secretly into the town where the lottery is conducted.