Tag Archives: games of chance

national news

Mega Millions has a winner, for better or worse

I have two quick comments about the winner of the $1.6 billion Mega Millions lottery. Bear with me.

First, stay anonymous. The winner purchased the ticket at a convenience store in Simpsonville, S.C. South Carolina is one of few states that allows the winners of these games of chance to keep their identity hidden.

I strongly encourage this individual to do precisely that. I don’t need to know who he or she is. Nor does anyone else. Exposing one’s identity also exposes one to scammers, relatives real or imagined, crooks and thieves.

Protect yourself from those who would seek to take advantage of you.

Second, wait for the rush that will occur at KC Mart #7 in Simpsonville. It never fails: the retailer that peddles the winning ticket at these high-dollar games suddenly becomes the most popular such establishment among those seeking to win the next big payoff.

What they don’t realize is that the odds of the same retail outlet selling the next winner are even more astronomically remote than they were for the first one.

A fellow won a $40-something million Texas Lottery drawing some years ago in Amarillo. He bought the ticket at a convenience store. That same store had a gigantic rush for the next drawing.

It’ll happen now with the KC Mart #7. I’ll be giggling from afar.

local news, national news, State news

What we might expect from a winning ticket?

games_of_chance

OK, I’m about to offer a not-so-bold prediction.

One day, maybe soon, someone — or some people — is going to win the Powerball prize that totals more than $1 billion.

That’s a billion bucks, man.

The prediction? The place where the winning ticket was purchased will become the target of suckers seeking to win the next big payoff.

It happens whenever they give out a lot of money.

I recall it happening in Amarillo not many years ago when someone here won a Texas Lottery payoff; I think it totaled a paltry $100 million, or something like that.

The convenience store — the location escapes me — where the guy bought the ticket became flooded with customers looking to buy the next winning ticket.

It’s an amazing aspect of human nature, I suppose. Those who like the play these games of chance are drawn to where the winning ticket is sold.

They apparently forget that the chances of the same outlet selling a winning ticket twice in a row are infinitely more remote than the outlet selling a winning ticket in the first place.

Whatever . . .

This Powerball mania is getting serious, folks.

I hope the winner — or winners — are ready to fend off the overtures from their millions of new best friends.

 

State news

Quitting while still ahead . . .

Lotto

I have a long and well-covered loathing for games of chance.

Such as the lottery . . .

While working as an opinion page editor for the Beaumont Enterprise, way down yonder in the Golden Triangle of Texas, I argued vehemently against the introduction of the Texas Lottery. I wrote personal columns against it; our newspaper editorialized against it.

The voters of our part of the state — not to mention the rest of Texas — didn’t heed our advice. Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Texas constitutional amendment that allowed for the creation of the lottery in the early 1990s.

Well . . . I awoke this morning and decided to forgo purchasing a ticket for the $800 million Powerball jackpot that’s looming out there, tempting many of my fellow Texans way past their strength.

I’ll let other suckers lay down their money and hope they win the Big One.

But for the record, I need to make a full disclosure.

Despite my hatred of these games, I’ve played the Texas Lottery exactly twice.

Both times occurred early in the lottery’s existence in Texas.

I went to a convenience store in Beaumont, not far from where we lived. I purchased a ticket. I scratched it off. I won something! It was a paltry $3 payoff.

Cool! I was two bucks ahead of the game.

The next week, I bought another ticket. I scratched it off. Nothing.

Still cool. I was a dollar ahead.

I haven’t played since. I quit while I was in the black.

Good luck today . . . suckers!