Pakapoo (; sometimes spelt pak-ah-pu or Pák Kòp Piú) is a Chinese lottery game popular in

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

in the 19th century, including on the Victorian Goldfields. A pakapoo ticket is bought, which contains rows of characters from the ''

Thousand Character Classic The ''Thousand Character Classic'' (), also known as the ''Thousand Character Text'', is a Chinese poem that has been used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children from the sixth century onward. It contains exactly one thousand c ...

'', an ancient poem in which no two words are repeated. The master ticket is kept hidden and is marked by the organiser of the game. The player marks a number of characters on their ticket. The ticket closest to the master ticket wins. A 1921 article in '' The Argus'' in Melbourne, Australia, described the game in detail: In Australian slang, "It looks like a Pakapoo ticket" is a reference to any writing that is messy or scrawled.

References

Lotteries Culture of New Zealand Chinese-Australian history Chinese games {{Gambling-stub