UNCLAIMED PRIZES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 303, 17 August 1932, Page 7

UNCLAIMED PRIZES

LOTTERY MONEY HELPS BUILD LUXURlOUS ARGENTINE GYMNASIUM. Holders of prize-winning tickets in the Argentine State lottery -Who have failed to collect their winnings "are responsible for making the Glub Gimnasia y Esgrima of Buenos Aires oUe : of the best equipped sports organisations in the world. The clhbhouse, grounds, stadium ahd 'equipment of this gymnastics and fencing cluh cost more than £2,--000,000, a largie part of which was derived from a source of income as 1 novel as it is sure and generouS. In 1921 the Argentine Congress passed ; an Act providing th'at all Sums of money "proeeeding. from the u'ncol'lected prizes of the national . lottery" were to be handed over to the cluh for the purpose of improving and extending its buildings, grounds and equipment.

This national lottery is a weekly affair, the cost of the ticket dependihg upon the amount of prize money to he distributed and the number of tickets to he issued. Thirty per cent. of the total proceeds of the issne is invariably distributed among a nnmber of deserving hospitals and charitahle iristitutions. The remaining 70 per cent. is divided into lpany prizes, the largest of which may be anything from 100,000 to 2,000,000 Argentine pesos. There are thousands of small prizes amounting to little more than the cost of the ticket. Naturally all players have their hShrts set on one of the hig prizes. As soon as they have seen from the papers, which publish the winning numbers of th'e hig "prizes in bold type, that their hopes have not heen realised, their interest flags, and | many do not even take the trouble the j next day to go over the official list in ( which all the prize-winning numbers | are given. The Act authorising the lottery specifies that any prizes not colleeted ^ within six months shall be considered 1 cancelled and that the proceeds shall | go to the cluh for construction and , maintenance purposes. The funds so derived exceed £62,000 annually. The cluh, which was founded 52 years ago to encourage the practice of physical exercises, now has an enormous gymnasinm, and elaborate grounds that have the most complete installtion imaginahle for baseball, hasketball, riding, swimming, ice and roller skating, lawn tennis, fencing, wrestling, boxing, rowing and all ldnds ' of gymnastic and athletic -exercises. 1 Of the cluh's 20,000 members, 3500 ' are women.