Big winners and big losers: Powerball preys on Americans who can least afford to lose their money
It wasn’t a mistake or the result of any funny business when the 2:30 p.m. drawing last Thursday in the New York Lottery Take 5 game yielded 18, 21, 30, 35 and 36 (a random pick of the 39 available numbers), and then the 10:30 p.m. drawing eight hours later produced the same five integers. It was a 1 in 331 billion chance, a statistician told another newspaper. And placing a bet on such an outcome would have the same result as throwing your money away.
While the odds for hitting the record $1.6 billion jackpot in tonight’s Powerball are a thousand times better, only 1 in 292 million, it is still a foolish pursuit, tempting people with fantasies of astounding riches despite the fact that — spoiler — you will assuredly not win the big prize. There will likely be more than 100 million tickets sold and almost exactly the same number of losers.
The Powerball prize has swelled because there’s been no winner since August. Instead, billions of losing tickets have been sold, the latest batch falling short Wednesday night. Should none of tonight’s tickets match the five white numbers from 1 to 69 and the single red Powerball number 1 to 26, even more cash will roll over to fatten a Monday jackpot. Lather, rinse, lose, repeat.
Dreaming about how you might spend the riches after the taxman takes his millions may be diverting, but this state-sponsored, state-promoted gambling encourages many Americans to throw away money they can ill afford to lose. The profile of regular lottery buyers skews toward households with lower incomes. Is this how we want to fund our government?
New York is already among the biggest state bookies, with a booming mobile sports betting racket that clearly violates the state Constitution and an eagerness to open three more casinos, even as existing casinos here have all failed to produce their promised economic results. Throwing good money after bad is a corrosive habit learned from that feelgood, dollar-and-a-dream, you-never-know contest innocuously branded the lottery.
