ABSTRACT
Thomas Jefferson is credited with calling lotteries, “A wonderful thing, it lays taxation only on the willing.” Thomas Jefferson ran his own lottery in Virginia; in fact, all the lotteries back in the 1800s in the U.S. were privately run. In 1612, the Great Virginia Lottery based in England was used to fund the founding of the American colony in Jamestown, Virginia. Later in the 1600s and through the early 1800s, lotteries were used to establish the Continental Army; hospitals; roads; canals; and colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, William and Mary, the University of Virginia, and Hampden-Sydney College.
