Sweepstakes

They sat on the edges of their chairs, teetering, twisting. Their clothes and manners showed that few of them were at ease amid the splendors of Manhattan's swank Ritz-Carlton Hotel. But it was less their surroundings than the fateful decision that each & every one of them was about to make that caused them to squirm nervously.

Out of a huge drum in Dublin their numbers had been drawn for horses entered in the Cambridgeshire Stakes at Newmarket, England, a race which decides one of the three great annual lotteries of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes committee. That meant a sure $2,000 return on each one's $2.50 investment. It also meant a chance to win $150,000, $75,000 or $50,000 for tickets on the horses which took first, second or third places. But there were 37 horses entered in the race. And at the Ritz-Carlton last week sat a big, bland, dapper, young Briton ready to pay from $3.500 to $16,800 cash for tickets on a large number of likely winners.

He was Sidney Freeman Jr., sole U. S. representative of "Duggie." A syndicate and not a person, "Duggie" is London's Douglas Stuart Ltd. ("Duggie Never Owes"), world's biggest firm of racetrack bookmakers. For years this British syndicate has been sending Sidney Freeman Sr., one of the directors, to the U. S. to buy up Sweepstakes tickets from persons who prefer a small sure thing to a large chance. Last summer Sidney Freeman Jr. went along, watched his father trade $100,000 cash for Epsom Derby lottery tickets which won some $225,000 (TIME, June 18). After that lesson Sidney Sr. decided that Sidney Jr. was ready to try his luck alone.

One day last week Mr. Freeman installed himself at the Ritz-Carlton with a telephone and a great stack of U. S. currency at his elbow. Cables streamed in from London with instructions, betting odds. One after another ticket-holders shambled into his office, nervous, undecided, wanting to haggle. Mr. Freeman remained cool, crisp, firm as ever his father had been. "Take it or leave it. That's the price now and we may not be buying tickets on that horse later."

By 1 o'clock in the morning Sidney Freeman had traded without a break for 24 hours, had paid out some $300,000 for 73 tickets and upset the pound-dollar exchange rate for the day.

Race results reached the U. S. about 10 a. m. that day. Wychwood Abbot, a horse, had come from behind to beat Commander III, also a horse, by a half length. Highlander was third. For the U. S. that meant the biggest slice of sweepstakes prizes it had ever won. Total receipts of the lottery had been about $16,000,000, of which an estimated $3,750,000 had gone from the U. S. Back now to the U. S. in prizes would come some $2,600,000, of which the U. S. Government expects to collect about $400,000 in income taxes. Three U. S. residents held tickets on the winning horse; eight on the second; four on the third. All three top winners lived in New York City.

Late on the night before the race Sidney Freeman discovered that a carpenter named Peter Dolan held a ticket on Wychwood Abbot. Prepared to pay $15,000 for it, Bookmaker Freeman rang Peter Dolan's telephone again & again, sent an assistant around to pound the door of his three-room apartment at No. 31-19 35th St. in Astoria. Queens. There was no answer. At 6:30 next morning Peter Dolan set out as usual to walk two miles to his job on Welfare Island. "Win or lose," said he to his stepdaughters, "I'll be starting off to work this time tomorrow."

A squat, little Irishman from County Cavan, Peter Dolan was in the mud on Welfare Island, driving piles for a new city home for the aged, when word came that he had won $150,000. He had been buying sweepstakes tickets for years without any luck. This time he had signed his ticket "King MacNesson," after a lucky Irish ruler, he said. Maybe that was it. He thought of going back to Ireland, but not to stay. His prime concern was to get back on the job the next morning, and every morning for a long time yet. Humbly he asked his foreman if he might stop work a minute to pose for some pictures. After that, Peter Dolan, rich for the first time in his life, went back to driving piles.

"Oh God! Oh, my God! Now Conrad can retire!" In the parlor of her own one-story brick house at No. 68-09 59th St. in Maspeth, Queens, Mrs. Emelia Lenz, 51, sat down hard and began to cry. Since she and husband Conrad came over from Germany 32 years ago they had paid for their home, kept out of debt. But Conrad was 66 now and getting tired. His $30-a-week job at New York Quinine and Chemical Co. in Brooklyn had not been enough to put their two strapping daughters through business school. Mrs. Lenz had worked as a charwoman until Louise, the younger, had finished and got a job operating a Comptometer. Then, with their elder daughter married, the Lenzes began buying sweepstakes tickets, hoping for a break. When their ticket was drawn on Wychwood Abbot they felt sure the break had come. Not a word would they hear from Sidney Freeman who offered $15,000 for the ticket.

After the race Mrs. Lenz refused to telephone Conrad, fearful lest the good news prove too great a shock. While she waited all kinds of plans ran through her head. They would sell their home, buy a nicer one. "I expect we will travel a little," she told her awestruck friends. "Always I have wanted to see the Catskills."

Until last year Peter Koss ran a filling station in Syracuse, N. Y. Then he decided that his lanky Son Simon Koss, 19, would have a better chance to get ahead in a big city. Down to Manhattan went the Koss family -- father, mother, Simon and 10-year-old Gertrude. Determined to make a man of Simon, Father Koss got a little, open-front cigar & candy store on grimy First Avenue at 23rd Street, made Simon proprietor with himself and Mother Koss as assistants. To prove it he put Simon's name up over the door.

Father Koss, who always liked to put a few pennies on the races, bought an Irish Sweepstakes ticket for each member of his family. Electrified was he when Simon's was drawn on Wychwood Abbot. Sidney Freeman visited Simon Koss twice, offering $15,000 for the ticket. Simon refused to sell, and his father backed him up. "We're gamblers, we Kosses," said he. The second time Sidney Freeman shook Simon's hand, wished him luck.

Everyone in the neighborhood tried to jam into Simon Koss's dusty little store when news of his $150,000 winnings got around. Simon had run around the corner to get his Sister Gertrude out of school. (The teacher would not let her go.) Peter Koss bandied words with the crowd until Simon got back. "I feel good, gee!" cried Simon. Somebody called for free cigars. Father Koss held out until a photographer persuaded him to pose with an open box. Mother Koss trotted back to put on some rouge and powder and her sealskin coat. Then they all posed, with Simon giving his mother a kiss.

"Can Simey do what he likes with the money?" asked a neighbor.

"Oh no," replied Father Koss. "We tell him what to do. He's a good boy."

Every morning for a long time the same cabman had taxied Julius Hader, 42, from his home on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn to his restaurant on Pitkin Avenue. Mr. Hader told the cabman all about his ticket on Commander III. On the morning of the race the cabman told Mr. Hader that he had dreamed Commander III came in second. The two tried to get the race on the cab radio, but it was still too early. Mr. Hader went into his restaurant, where Mrs. Hader was already at work. Few minutes later the cabman burst in, cried that his dream had come true. By telephone Mrs. Hader checked with a newspaper, fainted dead away. Mr. Hader kept calm. He was doing very well in the restaurant business. He would divide his $75,000 into four equal parts, give one to each of his three brothers who were not doing so well in the restaurant business.

William Mooney, 48, lives with his wife Anne, their three daughters and his wife's maiden sister on the second floor of a three-story house at No. 45 Clinton Ave., New Brighton, Staten Island. For 20 years he has worked as boilermaker in a Standard Oil plant at Bayonne, N. J. Last week he announced that he intended to keep on working there, despite the $75,000 he had won with his 13th sweepstakes ticket. But he would probably buy a nice home with land for a lawn and garden. He had always lived in a flat and he was tired of it.

Miss Frances Horowitz, a blondined and thirtyish telegraph operator, paced & paced & paced her top floor flat at No. 914 51st St., Brooklyn. "I'm sick! I'm sick! I'm sick!" moaned Frances Horowitz. "I have nothing to say. Nothing to say, except that I'm sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry. I made a great mistake! A great mistake!"

Miss Horowitz' great mistake had been to sell her ticket on Commander III, now worth $75,000, to Sidney Freeman for $6,000. But in Swissvale, Pa. a drug clerk named James Taylor felt just as sick and sorry because he had turned down $16,800 for a ticket on a horse which failed to place.

In Washington, Mrs. Mary Booth, a young and pretty widow, was sitting at her typewriter in the office of the Comptroller of the Currency when she heard her ticket on Highlander had won her $50,000. Friends, newshawks, photographers poured in. Mrs. Booth was worried by such distractions from her work. "The Comptroller might not like it," said she. "In a few years I might need a job."

"I should say about $4.50 maybe," was the estimate of small John J. Holden, 39, of how much money he had ever owned at one time. For four years, since he lost his job in a knitting mill, he had earned almost nothing. He lived with his old mother in a ramshackle little house in Newton, Mass. Lately he put 3-c- on a number lottery, used his winnings to buy an Irish Sweepstakes ticket. When he heard that his ticket had won him $75,000 he thought first of an automobile, a store, some new clothes, college for the twin boys of his widower brother. Then he began to worry. Now that he was rich someone might kidnap the twins.

In his suite at the Ritz-Carlton newshawks found Sidney Freeman with a headache. He was busy now offering cash to prize-winners who would otherwise have to wait months for their money from overseas. He would pay $145,000 for a $150,000 ticket. Asked if he had bought any tickets on the winner, he remarked cheerfully, "I thought I had one, but I found I hadn't. Well, we take a loss of about $150,000. It does not matter so much. . . . I'll be back in January. . . ."

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