1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

"Lotteries: America's $70 billion shame"

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, May 12, 2015.

  1. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Those places utterly and completely fascinate me, and I have no idea why. You can complete the trip and see 4 Queens and some of those other dumps downtown.
     
  2. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    This is what bugs me, waiting in line behind these people when I just want to buy one thing. I wish they'd show a little consideration for the people behind them. And why is their $236 more important to the store than my $2.00?
    Oh, maybe I just answered my own question.
     
  3. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    I probably spend a good bit more than $236 a year, but I can afford it. My thinking: If $200 million wants to come my way, I need to give it a chance, even if it's a really small one. And after I make that purchase, I usually spend some time dreaming about what I'd do with that amount of money. It's a nice diversion.
     
  4. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    The store isn't taking in $236 from these people. A store makes a couple of pennies for each dollar spent on the lottery. The payoff for the store is it gets a cut of winning tickets it sells. Still doesn't justify the minutes it takes the scratch ticket players to make their purchases.
     
  5. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    What the store really gets is foot traffic customers who buy other things in addition to the lottery tickets.
     
  6. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    Not the hardcore players I see that are the most infuriating. It is all scratchies for them.
     
  7. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    That particular day, I think I hit 33 different casinos, all off strip. Went in every downtown one (including 4 Queens), NLV, Henderson, Summerlin and South Point. I had a stack of match plays and wanted to see each place. Sort of a bucket list.

    The 4 Queens, twenty years ago, encompasses my most depressing gambling scene. I'm a college kid there on spring break in 1995. It's 2 am at the 4Q and I hear this commotion near the front. (This is before the Fremont street dome). I walk up and see the haggard old men sitting around "bubble horse racing".

    These wooden horses, apparently randomly controlled, racing around a track inside the size of a bubble hockey machine. They'd plug the quarters in every 90 seconds.

    The lines on each man's face were like a roadmap of his bad decisions that led him to cheer whenever a 9-2 wooden horse would pay off $2.25. In quarters.
     
  8. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    Yet whenever someone actually gets a scratch off winner, I almost always see this scenario.

    "Don't cash it. Just get me five more Lucky Ladies (or whatever the scratch off name is)."

    They scratch them off right there, hit on the cashier if she's female and under 400 pounds. Lose the $10.

    As I mutter "dumbass" under my breath.
     
  9. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    HAHA, i've played those horses back in the day. Back before everything was all digitized and shit.

    Part of the wonder of those places is just the people watching. Old men wearing non-iron truckers' hats. These poor, ancient women serving cocktails to the table games...
     
  10. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    It's was like walking into an opium den of low-stakes gambling.

    You can't un-see it.
     
  11. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I was a huge fan of the downtown dumps in my degenerate-gambling days. I took a more romantic view of the depression from the down-on-luck players (hey, it beats rotting under a bridge) and if I won a little and tipped well, I'd get treated like royalty. Tip two bucks for a drink at the El Cortez and the bartender will almost jump across the bar and kiss you. Do the same at Caesars and you might not even get a thanks.
     
  12. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Two places I went to a lot once I started to drive were Looff's near the docks in Long Beach (they mainly played pinball-bingo and it attracted the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor, the dreggiest of the dregs, the downest of the outs), and the Bicycle Club in the City of Industry.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page