Years of living in Wyoming deprived me of a vice that unlike all
others I never gave up, playing the lottery. Wyoming —thanks to an
anti-gambling faction in the state legislature and a regular thumbs
down from voters in past statewide referendums — does not
participate in the national Powerball lottery (the proceeds of
which are used to support “education,” but that’s another piece in
itself). The casino operated by the Northern Arapahos on their Wind
River Reservation is beyond state jurisdiction.
I knew people in Cody who drove forty miles north to
Belfry, Montana to get their tickets. Now that I live in Salmon,
Idaho, I simply pick them up at the nearest convenience store.
Twice a week I invest in a Powerball Quick-Pick ticket. I say
“invest” because the investment promises a possible return of $3 to
multi-millions, and you have to — as the saying goes — be in it
to win it. Last week somebody in Pennsylvania won $59 million. A
couple of weeks before that a Connecticut ticket scored $254
million. Unlike other players I don’t ritually use the same numbers
week after week, but take the random Quick-Pick. But other rituals
are familiar: signing the ticket and checking the numbers online,
or via a phone recording or newspaper.
Of course, the odds of taking the grand prize are
astronomical. The 195 million to one odds of hitting the jackpot
has been compared to blindfolding yourself and then on your hands
and knees locating a pea placed on a football field. At eleven
million to one, one is more likely to be the victim of a shark
attack tenfold. It’s 5 million to one to hit the $200,000 prize (50
percent more likely than the shark attack), 723,000 to one to win
$10,000. Throw in the lower tier prizes ($100, $7, $4, $3), and the
player has a 35 to 1 chance to win something. I have hit two $4’s
and a $7 and these merely paid for the next few upcoming
tickets.
The ticket costs a dollar, so my annual expenditure is
$104. A friend tells me that this sum is a “tax on stupidity,” but
if that’s the case then I’m not as stupid as I used to be. After
all, gambling (or its modern euphemism “gaming”) is the only vice
that promises that aforementioned possible dividend.
I drank rather heartily for years and the only investment
return I gained from that were hangovers. I’m guessing that I spent
that $104 on a sometimes weekly basis during my bibulous career.
Even just a six pack of beer in the pre-microbrew 1970s-'80s cost
two or three times what I spend on one Quick-Pick today.
I was a cigarette smoker until about twenty years ago. At
the time a pack of cigarettes — depending on the brand — cost
approximately two dollars (it’s twice that and more today). I
smoked roughly a pack per day, so I’m guessing that I spent fifteen
bucks per week (occasionally buying a full carton was more
economical, of course). This adds up to $780 annually. The only
thing I got from smoking was the chance (hopefully now diminished)
to develop lung cancer or emphysema. Certainly no multi-million
dollar payoff there. No high-end real estate transactions or
international travel. No weekends at the Ritz in Paris. The two
bucks per week I now devote to lottery tickets bought one pack of
smokes in 1990.
Like many folks who came of age circa 1970, I dabbled in
my share of drugs, especially marijuana. My current
non-participatory research tells me that dope is more potent and
pricey nowadays. Legal medical marijuana distribution seems to be
yet another aspect of an insanely expensive healthcare system.
Small amounts of weed so strong that it will not only get you high,
but, well, maybe in touch with your ancestors.
In 1972, just graduated from high school, I had a job in a
warehouse that netted me $90 per week. I devoted $20 of this
paycheck to a weekly one ounce bag of pot, which back then was a
good deal. It was rather tame stuff, commonly referred to as
“commercial Mexican weed.” The better “Acapulco Gold” and Colombian
stuff were rare and went for $40 and more, and was mostly beyond my
means. I don’t think I spent the $20 every single week, but if I
did the annual bill came to $1,040 — over a grand, and ten times
my current lottery ticket bill. For this investment I risked
tangling with law enforcement and jail time. My dealer was a high
school friend who displayed his wares in an elegant alligator-skin
briefcase. Always entrepreneurial-minded, we planned to invest our
share of George McGovern’s promised $1,000 tax credit for low
income Americans (McGovern dropped this scheme from his platform
before election day, but I was probably too stoned to notice) in a
projected retail marijuana business. So I cast my first vote in a
presidential election accordingly. Fortunately, the majority of the
American electorate was wiser than I.
The libertarian in me says “What the hell?” but I do wish
I’d never spent all that money — so long ago — on dope, booze,
and cigarettes. So, today, my motto can be found printed at the
bottom of every Powerball ticket I buy: “Please play
responsibly.”
