MAGIC MARBLES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 90, 7 December 1931, Page 5

MAGIC MARBLES

DODGING SMALL NUMBERS IN N.S.W. STATE LOTTERY SYDNEY, Friday. People investing in the State lottery in New South Wales dodge small numbers as they would a dog with the rabies, and not without good cause. apparently, for the principal prizes in the Government's gamble have proved that luck is on the side of tho big figures. With all the pains of a man trying to explain the Einstein theory of relativity, writers in the Syaney Press have indulged in mathematical calculations in their attempts to prove that under the present system of drawing, the small numbers have not the same chance as tho big figures. The lottery authorit'es have been at no less pains to show that all numbers," small or large, have the same chance. Whatever the ethical objection to the lottery by a section of the communlty, it looks as though it has come to sfcay, for it will be a brave politican who stumps the country at the next State elections with the abolition of :t as one of his planks, for while such a policy might evoke the blessings of the chureh folk the love of a gamble is inherent in most people. Oue gratifying fcature of the State lottery Is that, so far as can -be seen the principal prizes in each drawing have gone mostly to people wno, by this stroke of luck, have been lifted out of penury.