Lottery
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
A scheme for the distribution of prizes by lot to persons buying chances.
49 Ala. 396.
A scheme whereby one, on paying money or other valuable thing to another, becomes entitled to receive from him such a return in value or nothing as some formula of chance may determine.
Bish. St. Crimes, § 952.
A lottery has been distinguished from a mere bet or wager in that the latter is executory on both sides, and determined by an independent event; while in case of the former, a price is paid for a chance of a prize, and it is determined by the manager of the game, according to a prearranged scheme, whether he who pays the money is to have a prize.
137 Mass. 250.
A gift enterprise (q. v.) is a lottery (37 Tenn. 507), as is any enterprise by which prizes are paid by lot to persons paying to become members of an association (8 N. Y. 228; 33 N. H. 329; 59 111. 160).