were deducted for profit and working expenses off the winnings, you ought, if you staked a scudo, for instance, and won an "eletto," "ambo" or "terno," to win in round numbers 14, 300, and 9000 scudi respectively.
If in reality you did win (a very great "if" indeed), you would not be paid in these instances more than 4, 25 and 3600 scudi.

In fact, if ever there was invented in this world a game, of which the old saying, "Heads I win, and tails you lose" held true, it would be of the Papal Lottery.
If the numbers you back do not happen to turn up, you lose the whole of your stake; if they do, you are docked of more than seventy-five per cent.

of your winnings.

For my part, I would sooner play at thimble-rig on Epsom Downs, or dominoes with Greek merchants, or at "three-cards" with a casual and communicative fellow-passenger of sporting cast: I should infallibly be legged, but I should hardly be plundered so ruthlessly or remorselessly.

Still the Vatican, like all gentlemen who play with loaded dice or marked cards, may have a run of luck against it.
Spiritual infallibility itself cannot determine whether a halfpenny tossed into the air will come down man or woman, and the law of chances cannot be regulated by a _motu proprio_.