MOSCOW’S LOTTERY

Evening Star, Issue 20089, 1 February 1929, Page 6

MOSCOW’S LOTTERY

IKE WHEEL OF CHANGE AND ITS AUDIENCE .GAMBLING INSTINCT Hi RUSSIA Public gambling iu Russia is now forbidden, The former casino, “ Monaco, ’’ whicli otherwise boro little resemblance to the fashionable gaming centre on the Riviera, has been closed, and its shabbily-dressed patrons must go elsewhere to stake thdr slender fortunes on a turn of the card in chemin-dc-fer or the oscillations ol the wheel in roulette. But the passion for gambling, so vividly depicted in some of the novels of Tolstoy and Rostovsky, has by no means died out in Soviet Russia, and finds a legal outlet for expression in the strong popular demand for State lottery loans, which pay no interest, but offer the glittering allurement ot thousands of prizes, ranging in value from 200 to 100,QUO roubles, payable on bonds of a par value of 100 roubles. Jt is not always an easy matter to sell State loans in Russia;, the peasants especially display the greatest scepticism in regard to this form of saving. But on the eve of the drawings for the State Lottery Loan of 192 G, which has an especially tempting scries of premiums, flic banks of Moscow arc besieged with eager purchasers. The maxims of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard have never found a hearing among the Russian people; a State loan with a prosaic yearly rate of interest, even though that rate be as high as 10 or 12 per cent., loaves them comparatively indifferent. But hold forth the prospect of winning 100,000 roubles, oven though the mathematical chance of such a coup is but 1 in 10,000, or even less, and ready takers for lire bonds are found. THIS DRAWING.

The drawings are held every three months in the Theatre ol Meicrhokl. ami attract larger and more excited audiences than are usually to be found at the modernistic plays of that theatre. Outside the building, in the red streamers which are usually associated with revolutionary celebrations, are inscribed such acquisitive slogans as: ‘‘Ninth Drawing of the 192(3 Lottery Loan,” “ Main Prize, 100,(100 roubles.” And. with a view to consoling disillusioned bondholders; “The Chances of Winning Increase with Each New Drawing.” The Drawing Commission sits on the stage of the theatre behind two wheels. Bullets with enclosed bits; of paper on which the scries and individual numbers of the bonds are written arc placed in the wheels, which revolve by electrical power, while two small boys at periodic intervals pull out the bullets, which arc opened and read by the president of the commission. THE “FORMER PEOPLE.”

One sees all types of people in the strained and attentive _ audiencebowed old workers, cherishing the hope that their half or quarter interest in a bond may bring them a more comfortable old age than they can expect to enjoy under the regular .system of pensions; ruined ‘‘former people.” thinking that perhaps the turn of the lottery wheel of the revolutionary loan may give them back something of what, the revolution took away; instinctive gamblers, to whom the complicated figures of the loan prizes allord a sol), stituto for the more rapid hazards oi cards and roulette.

The gains from loan winnings are secure against attachment, because they are specifically exempted from taxation. As in every venture of this kind, the chances of substantial gain arc few and uncertain. Out ot almost 200.000 possible drawings there is but. 100.000 roubles prize, together with two of 50,000, three of 25.000, live of 10.000, and ten of 5,000. But the gaming instinct is strong in the Russian people. On the eve of the drawing these lottery bonds stand well ahead of the other State loans, priced at 124, with no sellers.—‘ Observer.’