I feel like an idiot. I’m standing in my local convenience store with a crisp $100 bill. I can almost hear Ben Franklin asking, “Are you sure you want to do this, Dave?”
Yes, Ben. If I’m going to write about this latest manifestation of Texas greed, I need to experience it myself.
So I do it. I give the clerk the Benny and in return I am given something that until two weeks ago nobody could ever purchase before in North America – a new Texas Lottery game called $20 Million Supreme.
The cost is $100 for a single scratch-off ticket. It’s record setting. No other state lottery has ever offered a $100 scratch-off game before.
From my research, I know in my gut what’s going to happen. I’m about to throw my own hard-earned money into the wind.
‘Horrible, greedy, destructive’
I began my research with Texas Lottery gadfly Dawn Nettles of Garland. She runs LottoReport.com. Her voice was angry. She called the new game “a complete rip-off.” She told me that the poor are most likely to suffer.
In her lottery newsletter she called it “horrible, greedy, destructive.”
It’s one thing to lose a couple of dollars in a scratch-off game. But $100 for a single ticket?
There will be four winners of $20 million, the Texas Lottery Commission promises. But Dawn said we’ll never know because under Texas law, big lottery winners are allowed to keep their identities private. Dawn said there’s no way to verify if anyone actually wins.
Players are buying
“Do you have the $100 lottery game?” I ask the clerk.
He reaches under the counter and pulls out a huge ticket. It’s a foot long. Try fitting that in your wallet.
“How many have you sold in the first week?” I ask.
“Well, we got a packet of 15 and you’re the 11th buyer.”
Odds for $20 Million Supreme
State officials said the odds of winning $150 for a $100 ticket are 1 in 7.5.
The odds of being one of four winners of $20 million are 1 in 2.6 million.
I asked state lottery officials a series of questions in writing and received in return an unsigned statement not attributable to any one person. But I noticed that the statement is the same as what lottery director Gary Grief said in lotterydaily.com.
The statement noted that the new $100 game offers “added convenience” for players and “added efficiency” to retailers who “face the challenges of long transaction times for large purchases.”
It added that $50 games were successful and concluded with a reminder that proceeds are steered to the state’s education funding.
Bought a ticket
I resist the temptation to scratch my ticket in the store. I’ll ask my wife Karen to do it. She’s luckier than I am.
As I leave the store, I think of that Ben Franklin bill I’ve left behind. A penny saved is a penny earned. Wonder what Ben would think of a $100 game. My guess is he’d approve. After all, he ran two lotteries in Philadelphia in 1747 and 1748 to raise money for the city.
Predators and a societal menace
Rodger Weems is chairman of Texans Against Gambling, which for 30 years has fought legal and illegal gambling.
“I shouldn’t be shocked at their brazenness, but I am at this,” he said about lottery officials. “I didn’t think they could stoop to this, but they have.”
Vice chair Russell F. Coleman said, “The unfortunate prime targets of the Texas Lottery’s decision to sell $100 scratch-offs are persons in desperate economic circumstances and gambling addicts. The two groups overlap not insignificantly. With its decision the Texas Lottery adds to its status as a predator and a societal menace.”
Past grievances
As I place the game on the kitchen counter and call my wife in to do the deed, I think back at my previous disgruntlement of the lottery commission. It has nothing to do with losing tickets.
In 2017, I reported the idiocy of the Willie Wonka Golden Ticket game. You could only qualify for the billion-dollar prize if you had a losing ticket.
In 2018, I was the first journalist to report the identity of the billion-dollar winner. Nobody. No winner. What a scheme.
The next year, I showed how in The Big Ticket game, the printing was off, and it was difficult to find an entire row of numbers on the ticket.
If I were playing poker with Lottery Commission executives, I’d assume they are hiding cards up their sleeves.
Game instructions
Nettles showed me how to play the $100 game. “You uncover the first three boxes on top, and if you have two matches then you know you won. Then you scratch off your winning numbers, OK? And then you scratch off the numbers below. And you just take one number at a time and look at it. Use the bar code as a backup. Take it back to the store and scan it to make sure you didn’t make a mistake.”
Any final advice? She added, “I just pray to God you win. You have more nerve than me.”
Outcome
I give Karen a dime to use. It takes a while. She has to scratch off a total of 36 little boxes.
On the top row, we have no matches. Then following Dawn’s advice, we try to match the numbers below by using one at a time. Did we get a match?
Big ‘L’ on my forehead.
Everything sure is bigger in Texas. From the size of the foot-long ticket to the losses incurred.
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