Lotteries

Lotteries grew large when they were tied to the public purse. In Europe, towns in 15th-century Burgundy and Flanders held lotteries to raise money for city walls, roads, churches, and poor relief. One of the earliest records is from Bruges in 1446, for the relief of poor families. The prototype of the Japanese lottery is the tomie held at Ryuan-ji temple in Settsu from the early 17th century — worshippers placed wooden tags with their names written on them into a box, and a monk selected the winners by piercing the box with an awl, a draw called tomitsuki. It later turned into a cash prize, and in 1692 Tokugawa Tsunayoshi banned it outright. But in 1730, the shogunate, for reasons of its own finances, granted an exception to Ninna-ji temple. During the Bunka era, the lotteries at Meguro Fudo, Yushima Tenjin, and Yanaka Kannoji were known as the three sanctioned lotteries of Edo, and in 1842, the thirteenth year of Tenpo, the ban was reimposed across the board. Banned, then sanctioned, then banned again. Then after the war — in July 1945, a national lottery ticket called Kachifuda went on sale. The draw was set for August 25. The war ended before that date, and people took to calling it makefuda instead — the losing ticket. That same October, under a new name, the first takarakuji went on sale.