A History of English Lotteries by John Ashton

The "Missing Word Competition": its rise and fall.

Lotteries being universally known to be illegal in England and Scotland, no attempt has been made to revive them in their old form, since their illegality has been definitely pronounced; but very many ways of evasion of the law have been practised, sometimes with much temporary success. Sometimes they developed into downright swindles, and then they cured themselves; and this has been the fate of most of the so-called "competitions. " But the greatest of these modern-times lotteries, and one which permeated the land throughout its length and breadth, was the "Missing Word Competition" which was so rife in 1892.