{"id":12290,"date":"2016-01-09T11:57:37","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T11:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12290"},"modified":"2016-01-09T11:57:37","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T11:57:37","slug":"quitting-while-still-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12290","title":{"rendered":"Quitting while still ahead . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Lotto.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-12292\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12292\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Lotto-246x300.jpg\" alt=\"Lotto\" width=\"246\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Lotto-246x300.jpg 246w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Lotto.jpg 436w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 246px) 100vw, 246px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I have a long and well-covered loathing for games of chance.<\/p>\n<p>Such as the lottery . . .<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The voters of our part of the state &#8212; not to mention the rest of Texas &#8212; didn&#8217;t heed our advice. Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Texas constitutional amendment that allowed for the creation of the lottery in the\u00a0early 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>Well . . . I awoke this morning and decided to forgo purchasing a ticket for the $800 million Powerball jackpot that&#8217;s looming out there, tempting many of my fellow Texans way past their strength.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll let other suckers lay down their money and hope they win the Big One.<\/p>\n<p>But\u00a0for the record, I need to make a full disclosure.<\/p>\n<p>Despite my hatred of these games, I&#8217;ve played the Texas Lottery exactly twice.<\/p>\n<p>Both times occurred early in the lottery&#8217;s existence in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Cool! I was two bucks ahead of the game.<\/p>\n<p>The next week, I bought another ticket. I scratched it off. Nothing.<\/p>\n<p>Still cool. I was a dollar ahead.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t played since. I quit while I was in the black.<\/p>\n<p>Good luck today . . .\u00a0<em>suckers!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12290\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Quitting while still ahead . . .<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[5847,3691,4658],"class_list":["post-12290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-games-of-chance","tag-powerball","tag-texas-lottery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12293,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12290\/revisions\/12293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}