Monday, April 21, 2008

A Question for the State of Florida Lottery Officials

Now that you can increase your lottery winnings by paying an extra dollar (add ten million) or two dollars (add 25 million), How is the money divied up if there are multple winners?

Let's say the jackpot is up to $20 million, and I pay the extra 3 bucks (add $25million) and win--I win $45 million, right?

Okay.

But what if there is another winner, Bubba, who paid the extra 3 Bucks? Does that player split my extra $25 million with me or does he have his own $25 million to keep for himself. I am aware that we must split the $20 million dollar jackpot, but what about the extra $25 million? Is it a $25 million dollar extra pot from which all 3-buck-extra participating players are paid, or is it an exclusive pot that each winner collects solely?

Please contact me, Florida. Inquiring minds want to know.

Preston

How to Win at the Casino

Be warned--the guy who told me this is a gosh-darned fool, as are all gamblers. But, to his credit, he is driving a Mercedes these days.

He claims to have a system for winning money at the South Florida Indian Casinos.

He says, "What you do is you bring $200 into the casino when you go. You put the entire $200 into a dollar-machine, and you play it one dollar at a time. Pretty soon your total will fall from $200 to about $150 or maybe $100, but then your machine will suddenly hit something small, like maybe $125. When this happens your total will be at something over your orginal buy-in. Let's say it broke you down to $100, but then hit you with $125. So now your total is up to $225. What do you do? Cash out. That's right. Cash out. Cash out and put your $25 dollar profit in your pocket and then find another machine to stick that $200 into. I don't care what your profit is, but once you get over your original $200, cash out! Even if your profit is only a dollar or seventy five cents. Cash out and put your profit in your pocket, then go to another dollar-game and do it again. I call this technique 'begging for change,' because in the old days when the casino would clean me out for$1000 and I could not pay my bills, I would beg every little cent that I could get from my friends and it all added up to enough to get by on somehow. A twenty here--a dollar there--a five here, you know? So I thought to myself, I will do the same thing to the machines. No matter what little they give me, I am going to take it from them and let these little bits add up. On an average day for me, these little bits add up to from $150-to $200 dollars. On a real good day, it can get as high as $300. A twenty here--a dollar there--a five here. It adds up. And plus, I am not losing money. I used to lose like a thousand dollars a day trying to hit jackpots. I don't care about stinking jackpots anymore. If it comes, it comes, who cares? I make close to $1500 a week just collecting twenty here and a dollar there. I've been doing it for less than a year and I've collected over fifty grand in those little bits and not hit one single jackpot. It takes patience and discipline, but it works. Patience and discipline are a slot player's only weapons. Patience and discipline will beat the casino everytime."

Patience and Discipline . . . maybe he has a point. His Mercedes sure does look good.

The Things That Drive Gamblers Mad

Okay,

I waited a month before writing this. I was not emotionally . . . strong enough. Last month, March, was the anniversary of my mother's passing. On the day of her passing her phone number played in the Play-4. 7773.

The Next day 1972 played in the Play-4.

Now that 1972 is the year my brother Anthony was born--Anthony, the only brother who did not make it to our mother's service.

These numbers do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing. They do not mean a thing . . .

I apologize to my family for having written this blog, but I am a gambler and gambler's notice numbers. I can't help it. I am ashamed, but I just can't help it.

Lipshitz 6

Lipshitz 6
Reading T Cooper for Christmas

Punk Blood

Punk Blood
Jay Marvin

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Anonymous Rex

Anonymous Rex
Reading Eric Garcia for Christmas

Vinegar Hill

Vinegar Hill
Reading A. Manette Ansay for Christmas

Nicotine Dreams

Nicotine Dreams
Reading Katie Cunningham for Christmas

Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz
Pulitzer Prize Winner!!!

Edwige Danticat

Edwige Danticat
New Year's Reading

Greed

Greed
This Brother Is Scary Good

One More Chance

One More Chance
The genius Is At It Again/The Rapper CHIEF aka Sherwin Allen

Sandrine's Letter

Sandrine's Letter
Check out Sandrine's Letter To Tomorrow. You will like it, I insist.

All or Nothing

All or Nothing

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.

At Books and Books

At Books and Books
Me And Vicki at Our Reading

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.