was their an express lottery drawn in london, england?

Answer 1

Scam.
Here's a web site that lists all the various lottery scams going on.
http://www.fraudaid.com/ScamSpam/Lottery/lottery_scam_names.htm
Don't send them money!!
Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Susan,

I recieved a snail mail regarding this lottery and was wondering the same thing. I contacted the company (Lennox Hearth) the check is drawn on and they do not know anything about it. I finally got throught to the Canadian number in the letter but the person I was to speak to was not in today. They said they had been having problems with their computers and could not access my file but that they had checks for distribution. Please e-mail me so we can compare notes.

Ann

Answer 3

I usually received e-mails from different countries (worldwide) informing me that I won millions of dollars/pounds. All are tricks and scams! You.....?

Answer 4

This is definitely a scam. I get about five per day.
Just delete it and ignore it..

www.scambuster419.co.uk/lottery.htm
antivirus.about.com/cs/hoaxes/p/lottery.htm
www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes/lotterywin.html

Answer 5

If you got an email informing you that you had won it, then NO, it is a scam. Sorry.

Answer 6

Looks like a no...They think it's evil...

The first English lottery mentioned in history was drawn in the year 1569. It consisted of 400,000 lots, at 10s. each lot. The prizes were plate; and the profits were to go towards repairing the havens or ports of this kingdom. It was drawn at the west door of St Paul's Cathedral. The drawing began on the 10th of January, 1569, and continued incessantly, DAY AND NIGHT, till the 6th of May following.[146] Another lottery was held at the same place in 1612, King James having permitted it in favour of `the plantation of English colonies in Virginia.' One Thomas Sharplys, a tailor of London, won the chief prize, which was `4000 crowns in fair plate.'

[146] The printed scheme of this lottery is still in the possession of the Antiquarian Society of London.

In 1680, a lottery was granted to supply London with water. At the end of the 17th century, the government being in want of money to carry on the war, resorted to a lottery, and L1,200,000 was set apart or NAMED for the purpose. The tickets were all disposed of in less than six months, friends and enemies joining in the speculation. It was a great success; and when right-minded people murmured at the impropriety of the thing, they were told to hold their tongues, and assured that this lottery was the very queen of lotteries, and that it had just taken Namur![147]

[147] This town was captured in 1695, by William III.

At the same time the Dutch gave in to the infatuation with the utmost enthusiasm; lotteries were established all over Holland; and learned professors and ministers of the gospel spoke of nothing else but the lottery to their pupils and hearers.

From this time forward the spirit of gambling increased so rapidly and grew so strong in England, that in the reign of Queen Anne private lotteries had to be suppressed as public nuisances.

The first parliamentary lottery was instituted in 1709, and from this period till 1824 the passing of a lottery bill was in the programme of every session. Up to the close of the 18th century the prizes were generally paid in the form of terminable, and sometimes of perpetual, annuities. Loans were also raised by granting a bonus of lottery tickets to all who subscribed a certain amount.

This gambling of annuities, despite the restrictions of an act passed in 1793, soon led to an appalling amount of vice and misery; and in 1808, a committee of the House of Commons urged the suppression of this ruinous mode of filling the national exchequer. The last public lottery in Great Britain was drawn in October, 1826.

The lotteries exerted a most baneful influence on trade, by relaxing the sinews of industry and fostering the destructive spirit of gaming among all orders of men. Nor was that all. The stream of this evil was immensely swelled and polluted, in open defiance of the law, by a set of artful and designing men, who were ever on the watch to allure and draw in the ignorant and unwary by the various modes and artifices of `insurance,' which were all most flagrant and gross impositions on the public, as well as a direct violation of the law. One of the most common and notorious of these schemes was the insuring of numbers for the next day's drawing, at a premium which (if legal) was much greater than adequate to the risk. Thus, in 1778, when the just premium of the lottery was only 7s. 6d., the office- keepers charged 9s., which was a certain gain of nearly 30 per cent.; and they aggravated the fraud as the drawing advanced.

On the sixteenth day of drawing the just premium was not quite 20s., whereas the office-keepers charged L1 4s. 6d., which clearly shows the great disadvantage that every person laboured under who was imprudent enough to be concerned in the insurance of numbers.[148]

[148] Public Ledger, Dec. 3, 1778.

In every country where lotteries were in operation numbers were ruined at the close of each drawing, and of these not a few sought an oblivion of their folly ill self-murder--by the rope, the razor, or the river.

A more than usual number of adventurers were said to have been ruined in the lottery of 1788, owing to the several prizes continuing long in the wheel (which gave occasion to much gambling), and also to the desperate state of certain branches of trade, caused by numerous and important bankruptcies. The suicides increased in proportion. Among them one person made herself remarkable by a thoughtful provision to prevent disappointment. A woman, who had scraped everything together to put into the lottery, and who found herself ruined at its close, fixed a rope to a beam of sufficient strength; but lest there should be any accidental failure in the beam or rope, she placed a large tub of water underneath, that she might drop into it; and near her also were two razors on a table ready to be used, if hanging or drowning should prove ineffectual.

A writer of the time gives the following account of the excitement that prevailed during the drawing of the lottery:-- `Indeed, whoever wishes to know what are the "blessings" of a lottery, should often visit Guildhall during the time of its drawing,--when he will see thousands of workmen, servants, clerks, apprentices, passing and repassing, with looks full of suspense and anxiety, and who are stealing at least from their master's time, if they have not many of them also robbed him of his property, in order to enable them to become adventurers. In the next place, at the end of the drawing, let our observer direct his steps to the shops of the pawnbrokers, and view, as he may, the stock, furniture, and clothes of many hundred poor families, servants, and others, who have been ruined by the lottery. If he wish for further satisfaction, let him attend at the next Old Bailey Sessions, and hear the death-warrant of many a luckless gambler in lotteries, who has been guilty of subsequent theft and forgery; or if he seek more proof, let him attend to the numerous and horrid scenes of self-murder, which are known to accompany the closing of the wheels of fortune each year:[149] and then let him determine on "the wisdom and policy" of lotteries in a commercial city.'

[149] A case is mentioned of two servants who, having lost their all in lotteries, robbed their master; and in order to prevent being seized and hanged in public, murdered themselves in private.

The capital prizes were so large that they excited the eagerness of hope; but the sum secured by the government was small when compared with the infinite mischief it occasioned. On opening the budget of 1788, the minister observed in the House of Commons, `that the bargain he had this year for the lottery was so very good for the public, that it would produce a gain of L270,000, from which he would deduct L12,000 for the expenses of drawing, &c., and then there would remain a net produce of L258,000.' This result, therefore, was deemed extraordinary; but what was that to the extraordinary mischief done to the community by the authorization of excessive gambling!

Some curious facts are on record relating to the lotteries.

Until the year 1800 the drawing of the lottery (which usually consisted of 60,000 tickets for England alone) occupied forty-two days in succession; it was, therefore, about forty-two to one against any particular number being drawn the first day; if it remained in the wheel, it was forty-one to one against its being drawn on the second, &;c.; the adventurer, therefore, who could for eight-pence insure the return of a guinea, if a given number came up the first day, would naturally be led, if he failed, to a small increase of the deposit according to the decrease of the chance against him, until his number was drawn, or the person who took the insurance money would take it no longer.

In the inquiry respecting the mendicity of London, in 1815, Mr Wakefield declared his opinion that the lottery was a cause of mendicity; and related an instance--the case of an industrious man who applied to the Committee of Spitalfields Soup Society for relief; and when, on being asked his profession, said he was a `Translator'--which, when TRANSLATED, signifies, it seems, the art of converting old boots and shoes into wearable ones; `but the lottery is about to draw, and,' says he, `I have no sale for boots or shoes during the time that the lottery draws'--the money of his customers being spent in the purchase of tickets, or the payment of `insurances.' The `translator' may have been mistaken as to the cause of his trade falling off; but there can be no doubt that the system of the lottery-drawing was a very infatuating mode of gambling, as the passion was kept alive from day to day; and though, perhaps, it did not create mendicity, yet it mainly contributed, with the gin-shops, night- cellars, obscure gambling houses, and places of amusement, to fill the PAWNBROKERS' shops, and diminish the profits of the worthy `translator of old shoes.'[150]

[150] This term is still in use. I recently asked one of the craft if he called himself a translator. `Yes, sir, not of languages, but old boots and shoes,' was the reply.

This reasoning, however, is very uncertain.

The sixteenth of a lottery ticket, which is the smallest share that can be purchased, has not for many years been sold under thirty shillings, a sum much too large for a person who buys old shoes `translated,' and even for the `translator' himself, to advance; we may therefore safely conclude that the purchase of tickets is not the mode of gambling by which Crispin's customers are brought to distress.

A great number of foreign lotteries still exist in vigorous operation. Some are supported by the state, and others are only authorized; most of them are flourishing. In Germany, especially, lotteries are abundant; immense properties are disposed of by this method. The `bank' gains, of course, enormously; and, also of course, a great deal of trickery and swindling, or something like it, is perpetrated.

Foreign lottery tickets are now and then illegally offered in England. A few years ago there appeared an advertisement in the papers, offering a considerable income for the payment of one or two pounds. Upon inquiry it was found to be the agency of a foreign lottery! These tempting offers of advertising speculators are a cruel addition to the miseries of misfortune.

The Hamburg lottery seems to afford the most favourable representation of the system--as such--because in it all the money raised by the sale of tickets is redistributed in the drawing of the lots, with the exception of 10 per cent. deducted in expenses and otherwise; but nothing can compensate for the pernicious effects of the spirit of gambling which is fostered by lotteries, however fairly conducted. They are an unmitigated evil.