[a. It. lotto, F. loto: see LOT sb.]
1. A game played with cards divided into numbered and blank squares and numbered discs to be drawn on the principle of a lottery.
Each player has one or more cards before him; one of the discs is drawn from a bag, and its number called; a counter is placed on the square that has the same number, the player who first gets one row covered being the winner.
1778. Warner, Lett. to G. Selwyn, 28 Nov., in G. Selvyn & his Contemp. (1844), III. 353. I wonder how you could endure loto.
1819. Banquet, 33. Or bid enlivening loto for a while, Or cogitative chess, the eve beguile.
1836. T. Hook, G. Gurney, II. 121. Others diverted themselves at the more interesting game of loto.
1894. Contemp. Rev., Aug., 246. The children played draughts, bagatelle, lotto, or tiddlywinks.
1899. R. Whiteing, No. 5 John St., 77. The toiling infants under age are found at the game of loto.
attrib. 1779. Warner, Lett. to G. Selwyn, 3 Jan., in G. Selvyn & his Contemp. (1844), III. 381. Lord Fitzwilliam … received your loto-box.
ǁ 2. A lottery (of the Italian kind).
[1787. P. Maty, trans. Riesbeck’s Trav. Germ., III. lxv. 248. The lotto of Genoa, which, though decorated with a smooth and splendid name, is in fact no more than a Pharaoh table.]
1827. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1535. To the honour of the Hanoverian government, no Lotto was ever introduced into it, though many foreigners offered large sums for permission to cheat the people in this manner.
1884. Sat. Rev., 14 June, 774/2. The love of gambling is a national characteristic; and … Lotto—that is, the official weekly lottery—is the most dangerous of the forms it takes.
