I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. I stopped by my local news store one recent morning and couldn’t make it in the door. There were a dozen or so morons plunking down their money to play the $265 million Powerball lotto.
Normally, this phenomenon lasts for several days as the victims line up in the streets. Then the drawing occurs, and we all writhe with envy when the winner is announced.
Of course, we never hear how the winner runs through the money in five years and has to go back to work in the ice house. Nor are we told about the true odds of winning, which are beyond anything dreamed by Dutch Schultz and Abba Dabba Berman (operators of the most lopsided numbers racket of all time).
I don’t get it. On the one hand, you’ve got governments lecturing welfare clients that they have to work for a living. On the other, the states promise that they can retire tomorrow.
Well, here’s a couple of a questions about the state as croupier.
First of all, why is the government in this business? It’s hard to believe that the purpose is to raise money for schools and highways, because those things are in disgusting shape in New York.
Second (and this is pretty naive, I admit) what gives the states immunity from even the most minimal truth-in-copy standards?
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