How do you sell a relatively expensive property in a society that does not have banks or developed financial institutions? How can the owner of this property raise money to reinvest it elsewhere? How can entrepreneurs raise money in a world where there is no venture capital and there are usury laws that prevent banks from giving loans to newcomers with no credit rating?

The answer is – surprising perhaps – by gambling, whether selling lottery tickets, or around the gambling table.

Merchants in Italy, the German states, and England discovered during medieval times that they could make more money if they auctioned off their relatively expensive goods as prizes in lottery drawings. This practice gained currency later in the New World, where relatively large property, which could not be divided, was the prize. Thomas Jefferson explained the rational for such financing: