The Political, Socio-economic, and Cultural Impact of Lotteries on Dutch Society (1700–1850)

Abstract

The first part of this chapter describes the establishment of the state lottery and the reasons why the private provincial lotteries survived and flourished after 1726 despite the prohibitions and sanctions imposed by the SG. The aim is to reconstruct how the different administrative levels justified and promoted their lotteries and to see to what extent these lotteries served commercial, social, or other purposes. This part is largely based on institutional and administrative sources (placards, ordinances, policy documents, and lottery regulations). The second part of this chapter deals with the broader moral, cultural, and political discourses surrounding these state and independent lotteries, using a wide range of sources such as pamphlets, periodicals, treatises, newspapers, plays, songs, and lottery tickets. This part is structured according to the themes that dominated these discourses: the social and economic benefits of the lottery, the moral and social harm caused by the lottery, and the Jews as scapegoats for all the lottery’s failures.