Marble For Each Ticket In New Lottery Draw

Press, Volume C, Issue 29604, 29 August 1961, Page 18

Marble For Each Ticket In New Lottery Draw

■•The Press” Special Service

WELLINGTON, August 26. With the reorganisation of the New Zealand art unions, which the Government has announced, the periodical public drawing of prizes will be a very different procedure. The change from building up a winning number figure by figure to representing each ticket sold with a marble in a barrel will change the Character of the drawing procedure. The executive officer of the gaming branch of the Internal Affairs Department (Mr W. M. Bolt) said that details of the new organisation had not yet been decided, but that it would be on the lines that Australian experience had shown to be satisfactory The prime advantage of the new. system will be speed of drawing. It now takes two hours and a quarter to two hours and a half to draw the 510 prizes. In New South Wales they draw 1260 prizes in one hour 10 minutes, so it may take only half an hour to draw the new art union. The public are said to prefer the barrel system to the present New Zealand system, which is used in other countries as well as here. Present System Essential participants in the system hitherto have been a committee of people equal in number to the maximum number of numerals on the tickets that have been sold. Each of these people has a basket containing 10 marbles numb-red 0 to 9. To draw a prize, each committeeman takes a marble from his basket as an official walks from one committeeman to another in fixed order. The marbles are placed in strict order in a holder which • the official carries with him. As he receives each marble he calls out its number. Finally he shows the row of marbles composing the winning number to another official and distributes the marbles to the baskets from which they came. To find which of the 510 prizes is being drawn, a marble is taken from a small barrel containing marbles numbered in the way prizes are numbered Before an art union is drawn a list of tickets that have not been sold is made and consulted as soon as a number has been drawn. If the number drawn from the

baskets is one that has not been sold the fact is announced and the marbles are returned to their baskets. Australian Lotteries For most Australian lotteries a large barrel is kept permanently filled with as many marbles as there are tickets in the lottery. ' After the marbles have been mixed by turning the barrel, an official opens a trapdoor in it and, with a special ladle, draws out a marble. He does not put his hand into the barrel, and the ladle may be a special tool which can be plunged into the mass of marbles and grip one that he cannot see. He shows the numbered marble to other people, who record the number. Prizes are drawn in order of value and not by lot as in New Zealand. AU marbles drawn from the barrel are carefully checked back into it, and at periods the barrel is emptied and the contents checked. Between lotteries it is kept locked and sealed and the keys kept by a Government official in w sealed envelope. A consequence of the bar-rel-of-marbles system is that there is no drawing of a lottery till all the tickets have been sold. In New Zealand at present each lottery is drawn on a predetermined date, whether all the tickets have been sold or not. Essential equipment for the new art union will be 250,000 numbered marbles and a barrel. Wooden marbles have been used, but plastic marbles are now being introduced. Tattenali'a Tattersall’s uses 200.000 5-Bin plastic marbles in a barrel sft long and 4ft in diameter. The barrel is of welded steel sheathed in bronze and fitted with Internal flanges so that when it is turned by an electric motor the contents are mixed as the contents of a cement mixer are mixed Its weight is given as.two tons, apparently with its marbles. New Zealand art unions have been drawn by the barrel system previously. Before large art unions became regular events but were conducted occasionally for specific purposes all the butts of sold tickets used to be put In a barrel about 6ft in diameter which was turned by hand to mix the contents.