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David Porter » Entries tagged with "tontine"

Lotteries, Raffles, Games of Chance: People Certainly Like a Bet

From football pools to local/national lotteries, horse racing to snow falling at Christmas, the gambling instinct is strong, despite psychological doubts. Life assurance, taking a financial risk on how long somebody will live, has been big business since the Romans inaugurated ‘burial clubs’. In the UK, betting on football pools has been around since 1923 (Littlewoods, with Vernons in 1925, Zetters in 1933 and Brittens in 1946). Catering for people to have a flutter or punt on horse or greyhound races, the Cambridge/Oxford Boat Race or other sporting events, on the weather, a bingo card or political fortunes creates a turnover in the UK alone of £95 billion a year at conservative estimates and employs 35,000 people directly and indirectly. In the USA people gamble on baseball games or other sporting events … Read entire article »

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