THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 3, 1996 TAG: 9608310025
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By JOHN GOOLRICK
LENGTH: 62 lines
What may be harder than winning the Virginia lottery?
It could be getting the state to pay you once you win.
Recently I got ``lucky'' and won $250 playing Pick Three. That modest amount has no way paid back my long-term investment in that particular game.
I went to three different places participating in on-line Virginia Lottery games. All three said they did not have enough money to pay. When I reminded them that the lottery said payment could also be made by check, they either said no one was present who could write such a check or it was their policy not to pay by check.
I've talked with a number of others who've had the same experience. When one can't get paid after an unlikely win in the world's biggest sucker bet, one should wise up and forgo playing such a lottery.
In fact anyone who plays the lottery, including myself, is a bona fide sucker. Virginia sucks up more than half the money played on the lottery and pays back in prizes less than half.
If you go to a racetrack, at least you are paid at true odds under the pari-mutuel system once the state extracts its inevitable take of about 17 percent. But the lottery pays you only half of what the odds are on winning a bet.
For example, the odds of getting four numbers in exact order in Pick 4 are 10,000 to 1. Should you get fantastically lucky and win, you will be paid at odds of 5,000 to 1. Similarly, in Pick 3 odds of getting an exact number to win are 1,000 to 1, but you would be paid at 500 to 1. The state will already have taken its huge cut, but you will still have to pay federal and state taxes on the winnings.
The so-called big news now is that ``The Big Game'' is coming this month. Virginia has joined with five other states to extract even more currency from your pocketbook. If one spent a buck on every on-line game every week, it would amount to roughly $1,820 in a year's time once ``The Big Game'' arrives. And that does not include the Lotto ``Kicker'' which would add another $104 a year if played.
The lottery has become the 2,000-pound gorilla of state government because of the fantastic amounts of revenue it produces for the state. And obviously Penelope Kyle, director, is a busy lady as she dreams up bigger and better ways to keep Virginians addicted to lottery gambling.
Meanwhile, a new law that created a Charitable Gaming Commission is in place to greatly reduce the capacity of charitable organizations, fire departments and the like to raise funds for worthwhile purposes through Bingo and pull-tabs.
The law is a bureaucratic nightmare that is difficult of interpretation and could possibly haul some organization into court that dared to provide one of its volunteer Bingo workers a free hotdog.
Such is the condition in Virginia these days that the government has near-total sponsorship of such things as gambling and hard liquor. One suspects if the General Assembly learns that prostitution is legal in parts of Nevada, it might be tempted to legalize it here under the control of some new official commission.
I don't know what the size of the current Lotto jackpot is, but before you play it - and I probably will - bear in mind the odds against you or me getting all six numbers are 7.1 million to 1. MEMO: John Goolrick, a former political reporter, is now an aide to 1st
District Rep. Herbert H. Bateman. Opinions expressed are his own. by CNB