To the Editor:

If, in New York State's $41 million lottery drawing Aug. 21, a player had invested somewhat over $6 million, he or she could have been sure of being a winner - not perhaps the only one, but a winner.

There was a report that someone asked John Quinn, director of the lottery, whether he would accept a check for that sum and apply it to tickets covering every combination of 6 numbers out of 48; he is said to have refused because it would change the ''texture'' of the game.

On Aug. 22, you reported that someone offered such a check to a Putnam Valley vendor, and was very angry when it was refused.

But the philosopher Voltaire achieved the dream of every lottery player in 1729 - and without asking for permission. The City of Paris held a lottery to repay municipal bonds - a separate lottery in each district of the city. For various reasons, the prize in each district was greater than the total cost of lottery tickets. Voltaire saw that if he bought all the tickets in a district, he would be sure to win. With a group of his friends, he did just that. The scheme continued till at least 1730 (Haydn Mason, ''Voltaire, a Biography,'' Johns Hopkins, 1981). The syndicate made about 7.5 million francs - worth much more than $41 million today.