Point IV. On Drawing Lots

I. Notion. Drawing lots is a contract by which several persons, for a price given, receive a right of determining by lot who is to receive the prize.

II. The condition required for the justice of drawing lots is that the price given be just. But the just price is that which has regard both to obtaining the prize and to acquiring the hope of it. The greater the number of those who, by paying the price, acquire the right of drawing lots, the lesser the hope of each becomes. All things will be safe if the one instituting the lottery does not receive beyond the value of the prize or prizes exposed, of the industry and labor spent, and of the emergent damage from the fact that he did not use the thing or money exposed profitably. Make exception if the lottery is instituted for a pious work or for public utility; in that case the participants spontaneously give more than they receive.

Note. Public government lotteries are not illicit in themselves; nor practically do they seem so much to be condemned; since on the one hand it is contended, not without some exaggeration, that through them love of labor is extinguished and fortunes are consumed; on the other hand government lotteries diminish the frequency of private lotteries. For the rest, he certainly sins who exposes to lot money necessary for the family.