Modern Treasure Trove

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 418, 28 July 1928, Page 10

Modern Treasure Trove

FORTUNES FROM SWEEPSTAKES

Wave of Gambling Deplored

THANKS to the Derby sweepstakes, the boundaries of the British Empire appear to become in the first week ot June a far-flung punter-line. Indeed, the tremendous expansion of the ‘sweeps’ has recently been so striking that the social historian of the future will not be able to overlook this extremely popular form of hitching one’s Treasury notes to a star. ... . , , ‘•g c -vast has been the entry for the Calcutta sweep that the amount to be won has been multiplied ten times within the past 25 rears, and the winner receives £250,000. while the similar gamble organised by the London Stock Exchange can offer £125,000 as its first prize.

“Meanwhile there are smallei sweepstakes in almost every office, workshop, or club,” says the "Manchester Guardian.” So tempting have the rewards become that the purchase of large blocks of tickets by syndicates is a common practice. Public sweepstakes are, of course, forbidden by the law, but since there are various means of getting huge entries while the affair is kept technically private, there is very little difficulty in the way of those who are eager to take tlieir one chance in a million of becoming rich for life by virtue of a single race. “It is easy to see why the big ‘sweeps’ accumulate bulk and momentum in the manner of snowballs. As the prizes grow larger and larger more fuss is made about them, and the fortunate winners find themselves caught in a hundred searchlights of publicity. Consequently more and more people are smitten with the passion to take a remote chance in that lucky dip whose contents so far outrun in value the treasure trove and Spanish gold of ancient fancy. “There is no reason why the Calcutta ‘sweep’ should not In a year or two make its winner a millionaire at one stroke, while all the similar affairs hurry after it in the magnification of the hazard and the hoard. The more the gamble grows, the more, if it be limited to one occasion in the year, will it catch the common taste. The purchase of tickets in lotteries and sweepstakes is different in one way from ordinary gambling because it is exceptional and periodic, while the hardened taker of odds plods on as though by rule. •“The fact that sweepstakes are increasing proves nothing whatevef about an increase of routine gambling. To invest a, few pounds, shillings, or pence on the Derby is a habit of many people who pay no other attention to racing and who will publicly 'disclaim any share in the practice of gambling; a little on the Epsom affair is like the abstainer’s glass of port at Christmas, a salute to an institution, and therefore, It Is argued, beyond reach of blame. “Into the logic of that attitude we need hardly inquire, but there is enough human distrust of reason to make tlie mood familiar. To this mood the huge prizes now to be won bring an almost romantic incitement to have a fling. Oscar Wilde once worked out the paradox that so far from art imitating life, life really imitates art.

“In the case of the fortunes that now drop from heaven by way of Epsom Downs, life may not be a mimic of art, but it is at least being faithful to fiction and the films. The business girl who' may have been ambitiously scheming an advance in salary of five shillings a week may actually find a £IOO.OOO flying in through the window. The miracle no longer occurs only In the stories where Australian uncles perish in an opulence both secretive and superb. The thing does actually happen at Barrow-in-Furnes, as well as in tlie studios of Los Angeles. “When £IOO was a big prize there was less reason for a universal quest

of it. But now the pickings to be got from newspaper competitions rise rapidly to the level of respectable fortunes, while those of the 'sweeps’ soar up to match the estates of merchant adventurers who have toiled and triumphed on the grand scale. "But there the analogy probably ends. History never relates, and it is difficult to believe that these enormous windfalls bring the full measure of anticipated pleasure. It is probable that the money might as pro- j titably be thrown into the sea j as thrown into the lap of one | who, unless he is a miracle of self- J possession, will lose his head and fail j to find in it happiness either for him- ; self or for others.”