AIMING FOR GOLD FINGERS FROM ALL THOSE NUMBERS
(… and without benefit of any leprechauns besides)
Recently an almost half billion dollar lottery jackpot was won by two players, along with a third runner-up who gleaned a cool couple of million consolation prize for picking five of the required six needed for the big win.
In one form or another lotteries have been around for a long time. Their big attraction being that, for a very small investment, against almost impossible odds, one could end up aiming for gold fingers from all those numbers…and without benefit of any leprechauns besides. Only prospecting to find an undiscovered mother lode, or, searching for and finding a sunken treasure trove in the ocean’s depths, seem to rival their appeal.
It’s an appeal driven by that most enduring of human motivations…greed…for the possibility of acquiring extreme unearned wealth.
Thus, whenever a jackpot reaches such inconceivable dimensions, few of us are such moral purists that we hesitate to join in with the rest of the stampede for that pot of gold at the end of a lottery rainbow. Besides, all of that form of gambling is for a good cause… namely to benefit the education of our children (with the unstated understanding that it thereby will be reducing any taxation loads for that purpose).
This was the marketing hype and pitch used to motivate hesitant and reluctant tax-paying voters to overcome their qualms and distaste for any form of sanctioned gambling. All the flow of revenues generated by such State operated games would be applied for that purpose. Yet, to this date, we have yet to see or hear of any kind of regularly published financial statements to the tax-paying voters concerning a) What are the gross revenues from those lotteries, b) What are the operating expenses deducted from those gross revenues, c) What is the aggregate value of prizes awarded and deducted from those revenues, d) How much is actually paid out to benefit each and every school of a State involved with a lottery.
Like any other public entity, one would think that our various State legislatures would require such periodic financial statements to be published (ideally on a quarterly basis) so that the taxpayers can see where that flood of revenue generated by lotteries is being distributed. That is, how much is being allocated to each school district, and through these, to each individual school. More importantly, how such funds are allocated…and what for.
As far as we know, only the vaguest of accountability seems to exist here. Each state’s career politicos appear to have only required that any net returns from lottery operations go into a common “Education” pot…for distribution as they see fit. Meanwhile, while too many schools continue to be in terrible physical condition, teachers continue to be poorly compensated, needed school supplies run short, and desirable extra-curricular programs are drastically reduced or cut out entirely, these same politicos(of both parties) keep crying poor, and how current taxation levels are insufficient for education, etc., etc.. How more hypocritical can they get?
Meanwhile…does anyone have a formula for picking a winning combination of numbers for the next humongous jackpot? My fingers are just itching to get gilded…and I my two bucks are ready to oblige!
CENTURION
