Early History of Scratch Cards: The Scratch Cards in our days should be seen as an interesting and practical innovation to the ones mankind has used through out history to raise funds for many causes, as their potential advantages and benefits have been understood since early times in human history. They didn’t simple appear all at once, but they were the result of a process, the culmination of their own evolution.
Historians say that it was in Ancient China, during the Han dynasty – about 2,000 years ago – when Cheung Leung devised a lottery system to get the necessary funds to fight against the city siege, since citizens were reluctant to keep on paying taxes with that aim year after year and no longer were eager to cooperate with their own personal funds anymore. The system invented by Cheung Leung was pretty successful: not only he raised the funds to support that war that lead the city to victory, but the funds were enough to pay for a part of the Chinese Great Wall as well.
In the United States: No wonder some historians claim lottery to be an important part of the USA history, as they have been made advantage of to raise funds for a variety of causes. Lotteries’ founds used to support the tickets to America for many settlers to be for many years, especially in the area of Jamestown, and lotteries also funded the fight for independence in the Revolutionary War in 1776. Lottery funds were significant enough to be a part of what the USA is today, as stated Thomas Jefferson by saying that they constituted one of the best taxes ever applied because only the ones who were eager to pay would do it. Although that was true to a certain extent, lotteries were so tempting that we may dare say that even those who were not willing to pay contributed to the US funds by means of lotteries as well. Lottery has been significant for the founding of this country since then and served many important causes such as building public facilities such as school buildings, hospitals, and others.
However, lotteries were banned in the first years of the 20th century. As gambling was made an illegal activity, lotteries became illegal too during the dark times when those measures triggered off such a shortage of funds that America saw how their economic growth slowed down as a result.
Fortunately, the Prohibition was lifted in the 1930’s. But it was not until the 1970’s that lotteries took their own popularity to the next level – the first instant lottery appeared for the lottery in Massachusetts, created by Scientific Games. Scratch Cards gained a steady popularity and came to be a part of most state lotteries across the nation to fund a number of public causes with millions and millions of dollars over the years.
Scratch Cards Online: The great popularity of Internet gave place to online casinos and they started to offer online Scratch Card games to their members. They became extremely popular in the late 1990’s although their funds hardly go to public causes, as player do not even need to leave their homes to play.
All in all, lotteries and its modern version – Scratch Cards – have played an important role for the benefit of society all over the world, but especially in America. They are the best and the most fun way to pay taxes in our days and they contribute to cover a number of public necessities. Knowing the history of Scratch Cards helps citizens to understand the relevance of this interesting game in the society of modern times.
