Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The State of Florida Acting as Predicted

Go back and read my December 21st Post in which I pointed out one of the key dangers of state-sponsored gambling: when the state decides it needs more revenue from the gambling, it must either:

(1) attract more gamblers

[that is, attract gamblers from other types of gambling or get lotto players from other states to play its state game--in other words, compete];

(2) create new gamblers

[namely, "children" who have just turned 18, the legal age--in other words, get new people hooked on the "drug" like any smart pusher would];

(3) create more profitable games

[in other words, create games that are more addictive and that pay less--in other words, cheat the people who are already addicted--make them pay more, but give them the same return or less],

or (4) do a combination of one or all three of the above.

Well, the state of Florida has decided to do # 3--create more profitable games--create games that are more addictive and that pay less.

The new lotto scheme is to get you to pay an extra dollar or an extra 2 dollars to increase your lotto jackpot--if you win. The dollar adds an extra ten million to your jackpaot (if you win); the two dollars add an extra 25 million to your jackpot (if you win).

For example, if the jackpot is posted at 3 million dollars--

$1 = chance at a 3 million dollar jackpot
$2= chance at a 13 million dollar jackpot (in other words, add 10 million for that extra buck)
$3= chance at a 28 million dollar jackpot (in other words, add 25 million for the extra 2 bucks)

Okay, let's agree on something--you are not going to win. Well, you have a one in about thirteen million chance of winning, which is roughly a zero chance, but if you play into their scheme it will now cost you 2 dollars or 3 dollars to play--lose--on Saturday and Wednesday nights.

What's really happening here?

Well, we all know that big jackpots attract more players, right? So how does the state get a bigger jackpot? A bigger jackpot that will ALWAYS be there so that the state can always have more players? You got it--give the WINNER a chance at an extra ten or twenty million for that extra one or two bucks.

So with this new game, three things are going to happen.

1) The state of Florida will reap in millions and millions from players because it will always have big jackpots and therefore lots and lots of players.

2) The state of Florida will reap in millions and millions from the extra buck and two bucks that the thirteen or so million losers will pay just to lose.

3) You will get used to paying 2 or 3 dollars for your weekly (losing) lotto ticket--then the price of a single ticket will eventually rise and you won't feel it at all.

In short, it will cost you more and you will reap the same thing--nothing. Zero. In other words, the state has just created a more profitable game, not for you, but for themselves.

Yes, you say, but Preston, we are not getting the same return. We are getting an extra 10 or 25 million dollars. It's worth the extra few bucks.

No, you are wrong. You are going to lose, and one lucky guy is going to win. And when he wins, I want you to go up to him and ask him to share that 25 million with you and see what he says.

No comments:

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Editorial Reviews of All or Nothing

New York Times--". . . a cartographer of autodegradation . . . Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu — the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand."

Florida Book Review--". . . Allen examines the flaming abyss compulsive gambling burns in its victims’ guts, self-esteem and bank accounts, the desperate, myopic immediacy it incites, the self-destructive need it feeds on, the families and relationships it destroys. For with gamblers, it really is all or nothing. Usually nothing. Take it from a reviewer who’s been there. Allen is right on the money here."

Foreword Magazine--"Not shame, not assault, not even murder is enough reason to stop. Allen’s second novel, All or Nothing, is funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable. P’s inner dialogues illuminate the grubby tragedy of addiction, and his actions speak for the train wreck that is gambling."

Library Journal--"Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P's life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups."—Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

LEXIS-NEXIS--"By day, P drives a school bus in Miami. But his vocation? He's a gambler who craves every opportunity to steal a few hours to play the numbers, the lottery, at the Indian casinos. Allen has a narrative voice as compelling as feeding the slots is to P." Betsy Willeford is a Miami-based freelance book reviewer. November 4, 2007

Publisher’s Weekly--"Allen’s dark and insightful novel depicts narrator P’s sobering descent into his gambling addiction . . . The well-written novel takes the reader on a chaotic ride as P chases, finds and loses fast, easy money. Allen (Churchboys and Other Sinners) reveals how addiction annihilates its victims and shows that winning isn’t always so different from losing."

Kirkus Review--"We gamble to gamble. We play to play. We don't play to win." Right there, P, desperado narrator of this crash-'n'-burn novella, sums up the madness. A black man in Miami, P has graduated from youthful nonchalance (a '79 Buick Electra 225) to married-with-a-kid pseudo-stability, driving a school bus in the shadow of the Biltmore. He lives large enough to afford two wide-screen TVs, but the wife wants more. Or so he rationalizes, as he hits the open-all-night Indian casinos, "controlling" his jones with a daily ATM maximum of $1,000. Low enough to rob the family piggy bank for slot-machine fodder, he sinks yet further, praying that his allergic 11-year-old eat forbidden strawberries—which will send him into a coma, from which he'll emerge with the winning formula for Cash 3 (the kid's supposedly psychic when he's sick). All street smarts and inside skinny, the book gives readers a contact high that zooms to full rush when P scores $160,000 on one lucky machine ("God is the God of Ping-ping," he exults, as the coins flood out). The loot's enough to make the small-timer turn pro, as he heads, flush, to Vegas to cash in. But in Sin City, karmic payback awaits. Swanky hookers, underworld "professors" deeply schooled in sure-fire systems to beat the house, manic trips to the CashMyCheck store for funds to fuel the ferocious need—Allen's brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming. Fun time in the Inferno.

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Bio


Preston L. Allen is the recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature and the Sonja H. Stone Prize in Fiction for his short story collection Churchboys and Other Sinners (Carolina Wren Press 2003). His works have appeared in numerous publications including The Seattle Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Asili, Drum Voices, and Gulfstream Magazine; and he has been anthologized in Here We Are: An Anthology of South Florida Writers, Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction, Miami Noir, and the forthcoming Las Vegas Noir. His fourth novel, All Or Nothing, chronicles the life of a small-time gambler who finally hits it big. Preston Allen teaches English and Creative Writing in Miami, Florida.