Game of the Week: The Lottery

Whenever I think of the lottery, I think of three things: Shirley Jackson's short horror story with that title, the All in the Family episode when Edith buys what turns out to be the winning lottery ticket for her next-door neighbor Louise, and the Florida Lottery, begun in 1988 after being approved by a wide margin in the 1986 elections.  After my state's fledgling lottery instituted the Lotto with its promise of millions to the winner(s) each week, I would play along and occasionally put down a dollar for a ticket...I always used the same six numbers.  But never more than a buck at a time, nor with any real expectation of winning...it was more of a social "activity" I did with my family back then.  Not long thereafter, I lost interest and it's been many years since I ever played it.  But although the Florida Lottery has the altruistic aim of funding my state's public education system from its proceeds, it is still gambling and as such has infected many with its promises of easy money.  I don't know whether there is a gene that makes one susceptible to becoming a compulsive gambler, but sadly there was one in my family as I grew up and I quickly learned my lesson about gambling's downside.  One of the first Twilight Zone episodes I ever saw, The Fever, has a man reluctantly visiting Las Vegas with his wife.  Feeling morally superior to the "vice" of gambling he sees everywhere, he nevertheless succumbs to the temptation of the slot machine when coins pour out from it the first time he plays.  From that moment onward he is hooked...continually losing at that machine but afraid to leave it for fear that the next player would win "his" jackpot.  That's how I think a lot of habitual lottery players see their weekly ventures...the one week they skip playing just might be the week their numbers come in, and wouldn't that be tragic if they missed out.  When I'm at a convenience store or Publix at the service counter and someone in front of me in line lays down a large stash of dough on lottery tickets, part of me wants to wheel that person around and shout sense into them.  But no, it's all going for education, right?