888 kingdom
Louisiana Lottery
Louisiana is an exception to all generalizations concerning the development of gambling laws in the South.
The South in this past was generally Protestant-dominated and rural; Louisiana, at least around New Orleans, was Catholic and urban. English common law formed the basis of most gambling laws in the Northeast and South, but the Napoleonic Code and French law were the root of the legal system in Louisiana, especially New Orleans.
These differences can be exaggerated, though, considering that Louisiana was a typical slave state, agriculturally dependent on cash crops.
It soon taxed gaming houses to produce revenue for the New Orleans Charity Hospital, and gambling promoters consistently pointed to the aid given to the hospital as justification for the continuation of the New Orleans exemption.
Public gaming was simply not seen as evil by its citizens. In the 1840s, however, the city licensed casinos and taxed them in direct violation of state law.
Nothing was done about the violations; thus an attitude of toleration came to be reinforced by lax enforcement.
The laissez-faire attitude toward gaming that developed in early Louisiana would have important consequences later.
Although most states, after a bad experience with state lotteries, moved in the opposite direction. In the 1860s, it actually relaxed its already liberal attitude toward gambling offenses and allowed the birth of the infamous Louisiana State Lottery, otherwise known as the 'Serpent'.
In 1866, the state licensed the Louisiana State Lottery Company (LSLC), the charter of which seemed at first glance to offer the state particularly good terms.
The company was given a monopoly for 25 years. In return it was to pay the state $40,000 a year in lieu of taxes. Since there was no guarantee that the lottery would be profitable, the state seemed to have struck a good bargain for itself.
With its power confirmed by law, however, the lottery proceeded to corrupt the state in order to maintain its privileged status. Instead of losing money or breaking even, the lottery became the most profitable enterprise in the state.
By 1877, the LSLC began selling tickets in every state in the nation, and the house took a 20-40 percent cut on all revenues produced.
Profits were spent to promote the lottery. When reconstructionist Republicans began to lose power, lottery managers shifted with the political winds and poured a quarter of a million dollars into the campaign of a Bourbon Democrat.
In 1879, in response to cries for reform, the charter of the LSLC was withdrawn and the sale of all lottery tickets criminalized.
By skillful maneuvering, the Lottery Company induced the Constitutional Convention of 1879 to produce a document that included a provision expressly authorizing the legislature to charter lotteries and mentioning the LSLC by name.
