#1453 1930 · Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake · lottery / hospital finance
Foreign Gamblers Fund Irish Hospitals, Legally
问题
The new Irish state could not fund its voluntary hospitals, and domestic taxation would not stretch to them.
背景
In 1930 the Oireachtas established the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake, run by a private company to raise money for cash-strapped voluntary hospitals. The first draw on 17 November 1930 saw three Belfast men share a prize fund of 208,792 pounds, staged with theatrical flair, blind schoolboys drawing the winning tickets before the world's press, later smiling nurses.
The demand base was the genius: tickets were sold across Britain and North America, where lotteries were illegal, through diaspora networks and smuggling channels; by the 1930s two-thirds of the money gambled came from Britain, later half from North America. The sweep employed up to 4,000 clerical workers in Dublin and over its life raised the equivalent of 170 million euros, helping build a network of over 400 hospitals and clinics.
换别人会怎么做
Tax the population or appeal for charitable donations.
他们看到了什么
Ireland priced hope where hope was illegal: a lottery banned in Britain and America drew its punters from exactly there, so foreign gamblers funded Irish hospitals while the state licensed the wrapper.
那一手
A hospital-funding charity wrapper made gambling legal at home and irresistible abroad: draws were staged as public spectacle while tickets reached players in countries where sale was banned, carried by agents and returned as cash through the same networks. Foreign demand funded Irish infrastructure, and the state licensed the wrapper while declining to look closely at the smuggling that made it work.
为什么管用
The charity wrapper legitimized the lottery at home; spectacle and record prizes made each draw news; diaspora and smuggling networks handled distribution and cash return where sale was banned; and the hospitals' genuine need gave everyone a reason not to look closely.
值了多少
Ran 1930-1987, raising the equivalent of 170M euros and helping build over 400 hospitals; employed up to 4,000 people.
什么时候会失灵
Less than ten percent of turnover reached hospitals while the directors became millionaires, ticket-smuggling bred fraud and political protection, and the reliable inflow postponed health-service reform, a history Coleman calls one of the state's great missed opportunities.
后来呢
The archetype of charity-sheathed, cross-border gray-market gambling; it ended when Ireland's own National Lottery franchise was awarded in the 1980s.
资料来源
- [1]The Irish Sweep: A History of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake, 1930-87 (book page)University College Dublin Press (Marie Coleman), 2009ucdpress.ie
- [2]On This Day - 17 November 1930: The first Irish Hospital Sweepstakes draw takes placeMyles Dungan (historian), 2017mylesdungan.com