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Category: Communication

Description: The purpose of the contribution is to analyze the game of lotto in the Papal States between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with particular attention to the economic aspect. The lotto represented a formidable means of collecting money that the pontiffs were able to use profitably by accumulating substantial monetary funds without relying on the tax burden and public debt and producing remarkable effects in the economic system. Not only the proceeds of the game filled the budget deficits, but they went on to finance two important sectors for the life of the Church State: assistance and public works.