BIG SWEEPSTAKE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 6, 7 December 1931, Page 10

BIG SWEEPSTAKE

ELECTRIC GALE FOR DRAW.

An electrically operated “mixer” which blows the paper counterfoils about within a confined space in all directions, scattering and seprating them as by a gale, was used when the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake draw in connection with the Manchester November Handicap was made. At the three previous draws the mass of counterfoils were mixed by hand on a number of large tables. For the last occasion an electrically-driven air blast machine was installed on the floor of the Plaza ballroom, Dublin. In shape it is a glass-sided box-like cabinet some 6ft. high and 4ft. deep and 10ft. wide, and attached to it is a rotary blower.

The counterfoils are fed into a central trough and thence blown up an inclined plane, over the top of which they fall into a compartment, only to be blown up a second inclined plane and, over it, down into a large movable receptacle underneath the machine. Around this mixing machine was built an oval-shaped miniature railway track, on which were assembled 40 flat trucks, on each of which was placed a metal box containing counterfoils to be mixed. These trucks were continuously moved slowly around the blower, and at points opposite the centre containers were loaded with counterfoils from the trucks and discharged into tho mixer. From time to time the large receptacle beneath the mixer is replaced by an empty one, and tho mixed counterfoils discharged into canvas bags ready for loading into the revolving drum.

The machine has a mixing capacity of 1,000,000 counterfoils an hour, but in order to expedite the work and to guard against any temporary interruption by a mechanical breakdown, a second mixer and miniature track were erected. After the first mixing the counterfoils are interchanged between the two machine and the entire process repeated. Apart from this alteration, the arrangements for the actual draw followed those of previous sweepstakes.