Sunday, March 22, 1998

You may be a winner, but you never are

By Dale McFeatters

Lotteries and sweepstakes are aptly described as taxes on stupidity. Unlike any other tax, people will line up in a cold rain to pay this one.

You pay a little bit and hope to win a whole lot. You will win the jackpot the day the asteroid hits Earth. That's why the odds are described as "astronomical."

Intellectually, of course, we know this, but deep in that irrational part of the brain where superstitions lurk, an insistent voice says, "Somebody has to win. Why not you? You can't win if you don't play."

Among the most adroit exploiters of our tendency to forget basic arithmetic when confronted with the prospect of truly large amounts of money is American Family Publishers, who mail out 200 million envelopes a year promising, "You're our newest winner." That slogan is more appealing than the more accurate, "You and 199,999,999 people are real losers."

Intellectually, we knew the promised prize was only a gimmick to sell magazine subscriptions. In fact, in that fat mailing packet, only the instructions for ordering magazines are comprehensible. But with Ed McMahon and Dick Clark beaming beckoningly from the envelope, that irrational part of our brain is already spending the $11 million grand prize. Cruelly, some people were deceived into believing they really had won.

An 88-year-old man flew from California to Florida to collect his prize after foolishly interpreting "You're our newest $11 million winner" to mean he was their newest $11 million winner. He returned home empty-handed, save for a sunburn and lifetime subscriptions to magazines on snowboarding, feminine hygiene and Armenian pottery he had taken out to enhance his chances of winning.

Had the man read deep into the fine print, he would have discovered he was a big winner (if) his number was drawn. And while subscribing to the magazines wouldn't help his chances, the text hinted a few subscriptions wouldn't hurt, either.

Although some lawsuits remain to be settled, AFP has signed an agreement with 32 states promising to state clearly that no purchase is necessary to win, that purchases do not improve your chances of winning and that you haven't won anything yet.

Intellectually, these consumer caveats may help, but that deep, irrational part of the brain is beyond the reach of state and federal regulators.

Here at the news service, our staff of hard-nosed skeptics leaps into action whenever the jackpot of one of the lotteries reaches a size sufficient to impress people who routinely deal with government numbers. We take up a collection, and then the copy editor who specializes in complicated economic stories goes across the street to the liquor store and blows it all on lottery tickets.

We pass the time until the drawing debating two questions:

Does money buy happiness? A surprising number believe it does not but are willing to give it a try.

Would you keep on working? Again, a surprising number say, yes, they would, but they would be really bad employees.

We never win, of course. But somebody wins. Somebody has to win. Maybe next time it will be us. We can't win if we don't play. The odds against us winning are astronomical, but the chances are zero if we don't enter. And that asteroid is only going to miss us by 600,000 miles. One of these days an asteroid will hit us. The one that wiped out the dinosaurs was only 65 million years ago; so say the odds are 65 million to one. That's still better odds than the lottery or the sweepstakes.

The government could go a step farther and require the sweepstakes companies to put on the envelope, "You may be a big winner. You're already a big sucker." It's true, and it won't stop us.

Scripps Howard News Service