Last month, I saw a homeless guy walk out of a convenience store with three scratch-off lottery tickets, sit down, and start scratching with his fingernails. Not the cheap tickets, either. The $5 kind. When I walked by an hour later, he was still sitting there, asking people for change. I guess he didn't win. Shocker.
Last week, I saw a heated argument between a woman and a convenience store clerk, over her Pick 4 numbers. It was hard to follow because they both spoke broken English, but apparently, she was pissed off because she played the same numbers every night, and the clerk gave her the wrong numbers on her lottery ticket. I'm not sure if she wanted another ticket, or was claiming that her lucky numbers had won the night before and that he owed her the jackpot, but she seemed really upset.
Today, I just wanted to buy my usual breakfast of champions of a Power Bar and Monster, but the guy in front of me was buying his scratch-off tickets. Many scratch-off tickets. "Let me have a five and...an eight...and...can I see a three?" He ended up buying nearly $30 in tickets, while I was stuck there, unable to get my protein and caffeine fix. (It's a testament to how unfair our legal system is that if I'd given into my impulse to hit him in the head with my can of Monster until his skull cracked, I would have been the one arrested.)
I think these examples of severe gambling addictions illustrate a serious, serious problem in this city: We're simply not doing enough to take advantage of these people.
Why are the cheap scratch-off tickets only $1? Why not $2 or $3? Then jack the $5 and $10 tickets to $10 and $15, respectively. People will pay it.
Why only two daily drawings for the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games? Why not ten? One every hour from 9 AM to 6 PM?
Why not have city-sanctioned three card monte tables set up on every corner? That way, we'd get both people with gambling addictions AND gullible tourists. Plus, we'd never have to pay out.
The possibilities are endless, as are the possibilities for spending the money once it starts rolling in. We're talking about taxes cut in half, the number of police officers doubled, streets paved with gold (or, in the very least, paved with cement that doesn't need patching every year), and so on.
Some might say this is wrong. And hey, maybe it is. But addicts are going to buy lotto tickets, no matter what. So if we're not going to outlaw it altogether for their own good, we should just explot the hell out of them for the benefit of everyone else.
Last week, I saw a heated argument between a woman and a convenience store clerk, over her Pick 4 numbers. It was hard to follow because they both spoke broken English, but apparently, she was pissed off because she played the same numbers every night, and the clerk gave her the wrong numbers on her lottery ticket. I'm not sure if she wanted another ticket, or was claiming that her lucky numbers had won the night before and that he owed her the jackpot, but she seemed really upset.
Today, I just wanted to buy my usual breakfast of champions of a Power Bar and Monster, but the guy in front of me was buying his scratch-off tickets. Many scratch-off tickets. "Let me have a five and...an eight...and...can I see a three?" He ended up buying nearly $30 in tickets, while I was stuck there, unable to get my protein and caffeine fix. (It's a testament to how unfair our legal system is that if I'd given into my impulse to hit him in the head with my can of Monster until his skull cracked, I would have been the one arrested.)
I think these examples of severe gambling addictions illustrate a serious, serious problem in this city: We're simply not doing enough to take advantage of these people.
Why are the cheap scratch-off tickets only $1? Why not $2 or $3? Then jack the $5 and $10 tickets to $10 and $15, respectively. People will pay it.
Why only two daily drawings for the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games? Why not ten? One every hour from 9 AM to 6 PM?
Why not have city-sanctioned three card monte tables set up on every corner? That way, we'd get both people with gambling addictions AND gullible tourists. Plus, we'd never have to pay out.
The possibilities are endless, as are the possibilities for spending the money once it starts rolling in. We're talking about taxes cut in half, the number of police officers doubled, streets paved with gold (or, in the very least, paved with cement that doesn't need patching every year), and so on.
Some might say this is wrong. And hey, maybe it is. But addicts are going to buy lotto tickets, no matter what. So if we're not going to outlaw it altogether for their own good, we should just explot the hell out of them for the benefit of everyone else.
4 comments:
Count me in.
I've been trying to set up an underground c-lo ring for months now. If that shit was street legal, my life would be so much easier, as apparently all of our lives would be.
I've always called any form of gov't sanctioned lotteries "Victim Taxes."
In in favor of People lottery in order to control the population. If you win, you die.
Someone (not me) said that the lottery is a tax on people with bad math skills.
But the whole point of playing the lottery is not just to win but to play the "let's see who I'd share it with... no, not that SOB, he didn't say hello to me yesterday..."
Nice post and congrats on your dcblogs listing.
-lacochran (http://lacochran.blogspot.com)
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