The <i>Loterias Lisbonenses</i> of Francisco Giraldes Barba (Q6546579)

Since the ancient Greeks, lotteries were used both to choose representatives or to obtain some monetary gain. They are nowadays embedded in most societies. One underlying question is how to make the extraction quickly but also fairly. The authors discuss here a proposal by a Portuguese military member, who had many interests in mathematics, of a method of implementation of a special lottery. His invention, very ingenious, required only a common deck of 52 playing cards and allowed for a lottery with 22,100 tickets. The paper describes in detail how this is done and how this has revolutionized the lottery system in Portugal.