THE WIZARD OF ODDS

Lotteries and Other Risky Business

Greetings, fellow speculators!
     As this is being sent -- late on Saturday (4/25) -- we just
got back from a writing seminar.  Maybe the oldest bit of
writing advice I ever heard is to "write what you know."  And
here I am violating that two weeks in a row.  Last week I had to
admit to not being any sort of expert on women.  This week, I
have to confess to being one of the world's worst gamblers.  If
you took all of the money I've lost gambling over the years,
including raffle tickets, office football pools, lottery tickets,
slot machines -- everything -- you might just have enough to buy
a bargain dinner at a good restaurant.  I suppose I'm really too
cheap to be much of a gambler.  Or maybe just too suspicious.  If
the guy will let me bet on it, it must be better odds for him
than for me, right?
     State lotteries have become quite common here in the U.S. in
the past couple of decades.  Ever read the back of a lottery
ticket?  The odds of winning the big prizes are somewhere in the
range of 1 in 17,000,000.  Put another way, you have about a
0.0000006% chance of winning the big money, yet millions of
people play every week.  Contrast this with the professional
gamblers who refuse to play roulette in Nevada because American
roulette wheels have both a 0 and 00 spot for the house, which
drops the odds of winning from 1 in 37 to 1 in 38.
     We are lucky though to have contributors like: Jerry Taff,
Timothy McChain, Peter Adler, Laura Hong Li, Kathleen Beckmann
and Beth Butler.  Thanks this to all of our contributors.  Life
always has some risk, but our friends make Funnies nearly a sure
thing.  Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen!
     I'll bet you have a Great Week!





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     Gambling: The surest way of getting nothing for
     something.

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NETWORK NUMEROLOGY OR JUST ODD ODDS?
-----------------------------------
     Some years ago, when state lotteries were just becoming
popular in the U.S., an astonishing coincidence took place.  In
September of 1981, both the Massachusetts and New Hampshire state
lotteries had the same four-digit winning number.
     The ABC television network reporter, whose math was
obviously a little shaky, reported that the odds of this
happening were "one hundred million to one."  People just a
little more math savvy than the reporter pointed out that this
couldn't be the case with only 10,000 numbers, since there could
be only 9,999 wrong matches for ANY number drawn in the other
lottery.  So what will be the odds that we'll believe ABC of
future gambling stories?


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A CALCULATED CHANCE
-------------------
     The New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs found that
Harold P. Weingold had gone a little far when he promised to help
people win the state lottery.  The state fraud folk further
ordered that Weingold make restitution of $500,000 to the people
he cheated.  His customers, who knew him as "the lottery doctor,"
were persuaded to buy a wide variety of good-luck junk, including
key chains and other small items.  Among his best sellers were
devices he called "cosmic protectors," which were supposed to
give people a "93 per cent" chance of winning lotteries, but
turned out to be nothing more than cheap, solar-powered
calculators.
          [ At least the "cosmic protectors" are useful
          for something -- calculating their losses. ]

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ELVIS IS DEAD?  YOU BET HE IS!
-----------------------------
     Though all evidence is that Elvis Presley died of a heart
attack on August 16, 1977, for some strange reason a few people
have refused to believe it.  These folks are sure they've seen
the ex-king of rock and roll working at the K-Mart in Kalamazoo,
Michigan.  Or maybe they've seen him pumping gas in Texarkana,
Texas.
     But according to one measure, the number of people who
believe that Elvis is still kicking around in some small town or
an unwilling passenger on a UFO cruise are dwindling.  At least,
people are no longer placing bets with London bookies that ol'
liver lips and swingin' hips will show up and start making crummy
movies again.
     "Just a few years ago, the odds were as low as 25-1 and we
were looking at a potential payout of up to three million pounds
if he reappeared," said Graham Sharpe, spokesman for the William
Hill betting shop.
     "We've pushed the odds on Elvis being proved still to be
alive out to 2,000-1 but haven't taken a bet since August last
year when a fan staked 100 pounds ($160) on Elvis returning for a
live concert," he said. (Reuters)
          [ A few more bets like that and that fan
          really will be living in the "Heartbreak
          Hotel." ]

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FACTOID --
     While Nevada law requires that there be some chance of
     winning any game, it doesn't specify what that chance
     must be.  It is quite legal for the casinos to set slot
     machines so that they would only pay out once in a
     hundred years.

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SO, WHO'S THE LUCKY COUPLE?
--------------------------
     Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for, since it
might not be what you really expected.  That was the case with
Herbert and Suzanna Savell, a middle-aged Florida couple who
recently won $5.4 million in that state's lottery.  In the weeks
after their lottery win, they bought many luxury items that they
could never have afforded, including a $275,000 house.  But that
was before they started arguing about whose dollar bought the
winning ticket.
     The rift over the $1 investment caused the couple's divorce
5 months after the big win, though they will continue to divide
the $252,000 annual payout until 2015.  (Reuters)


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LUCKY LAWMAKER OR CREATIVE CAMPAIGN FINANCING?
---------------------------------------------
     A Wisconsin Congressman named James Sensenbrenner often buys
lottery tickets in both the Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.
lotteries.  That isn't unusual, but his recent win of $250,000
is.  He bought a ticket last December 18th in Washington, then
forgot about it completely until he got a call from the lottery
office notifying him of his prize.
     Sensenbrenner, a conservative Republican who has served
since 1978, is one of the wealthiest members of Congress.  He has
not yet decided what to do with the windfall, his press secretary
Gina Carty said.


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FACTOID --
-------
     The two cities in the U. S. with the highest consumption of
alcohol are Las Vegas, Nevada and Washington, D.C.  Las Vegas is
still more respectable, though.  At least they gamble with their
own money when they drink.

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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK?
-----------------------
     Interest has been declining recently in Britain's national
lottery, so the lottery board has been looking for new ways to
encourage the public to buy tickets.  Now the government folks
have come up with the idea for a new television show called
"TV Dreams," where contestants will engage in (hopefully non-
fatal) gladiator-style combat for $165,000 in lottery money.  The
show airs in prime time every Saturday.  (AP)
          [ So far there's no talk about Christians and
          lions, but we'll see what happens if the
          shows ratings are lower than expected. ]

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FEELING LUCKY?
-------------
----------
     When Brian Green left a betting parlor in London, England a
little over a year ago, he was sure he had lost a 1 pound ($1.60)
bet on a horse.  Almost a week later, the betting parlor informed
him that his horse had won the race that day, making him about
$500,000 in winnings.  Green had forgotten which horse he'd bet
on. (Reuters)
          [ Lucky they didn't let him continue to think
          so... ]

----------

     Janne Moksunen of Helsinki, Finland was lucky twice, too,
becoming maybe the only guy in history to win a lottery with the
wrong numbers.  Moksunen started to celebrate after hearing a
television announcer give the numbers in a live broadcast. 
Unfortunately for him, the woman announcing the 10 winning
numbers made an error in reading and Moksunen's ticket really
didn't match.
     But, luckily for Moksunen, the lottery decided to give him
the win when they noticed the mistake the next day, since it was
their fault.  That makes the 30-year-old Finn $1.4 million markka
(about $264,000) richer.
     When reporters asked if he was going to reward the announcer
for her mistake, Moksunen replied, "If she ever drops by, I'll
buy her a beer."  (REUTERS)
          [ Nice to see a guy get so wildly generous to
          a woman who got him a quarter million bucks,
          isn't it? ]

----------

     Not so lucky was Jonathan Michaels, who was listed as a
million dollar winner in the New Hampshire lottery.  A computer
error, the lottery officials said; Michaels hadn't won.  At
least, not yet.  The lawsuit filed by Michaels against the
lottery board claims he suffered "considerable letdown and
emotional distress," when he found out he hadn't won anything. 
(UPI)
          [ You mean, besides not being to keep up the
          payments on that Ferrari Testarossa? ]

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WHO SAID YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU?
-----------------------------------
     The question is, what in the world did Uncle Juan do with
the lottery ticket.  When elderly street sweeper Juan Villasante
Paz died last January of a heart attack, he was wearing his
favorite suit.  Unfortunately for his relatives, it was the same
suit he was wearing some time earlier when he bought a ticket in
the Spanish national lottery.  It later turned out to be the
winning ticket, worth abut five million pesetas ($32,500).
     Since no one has been able to find the ticket, and since it
wasn't in his personal effects, the best guess is that he still
has it with him.
     "It was either stolen or buried with him," his niece,
Alonsa, said. "I don't think it went to heaven with my uncle."
     Family members have asked the police to guard the grave to
discourage treasure hunters, until they can decide what to do
next.  (Reuters)
          [ Submitted for your approval, a simple man
          who both won and lost in his life.  A man who
          took his secrets with him -- to the Twilight
          Zone. ]

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   - Ever wonder why you never see the headline: "Famous Psychic
     Wins Lottery?"

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THESE FOLKS WILL BET ON ANYTHING
--------------------------------
     No one could say that the last few years of former Cambodian
dictator Pol Pot's life had been lucky.  His recent death at age
73 came just as moves were being made to indict him on war crime
charges.
     That's not to say that his death wasn't lucky for some
people -- on hearing of his death, people in Thailand's Si Sakat
province took the death as a sign, and bet millions on that
number in the national lottery with underground bookies.  When
the drawing was made that evening, the winning number ended in
73.
     Since the underground bookies usually just take bets on the
last number, hundreds of them were wiped out as so many people
won their bets.  (Reuters)
          [ Would you call that winning the Pol Pot
          pot? ]

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WHEN IN ROME?
------------
     The Federal Bureau of Investigation was recently called in
to look into illegal gambling at the Chicago Board of Trade. 
Somehow, it surprised the government that people who bet millions
of dollars every day on microscopic changes in the price of
coffee or soybeans might see betting on a football game as
recreation.   An undercover F.B.I. agent blended in with the
other traders to infiltrate the large-scale betting pool, placing
bets along with the others to remain inconspicuous.  The U.S.
Attorney's office in Chicago was set to indict several people for
gambling just after the Super Bowl.
     Just at that point, the undercover agent's identity became
known to everyone who bet in the pool, destroying the
investigation.  It had never occurred to the government that the
agent would WIN the $4000 Super Bowl pot.

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