Is the lotto like the three –card game?

Jun 24, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Sometime after a good run of the introduction of the new format of the lotto- super 6, where instead of choosing numbers between one to 36, it was reduced to one to 28.
A customer wrote a letter stating that someone who understands the arrangement and magic of numbers –I think he mentioned Mr. Christopher Ram- to give an explanation as to how on earth with lesser members to select from it has become much more difficult to win, not even wining a consolation of having 3 members correct while the cost of a ticket had double.
What this individual who was both baffled and upset was expressing was exactly the very same feeling/and experience of endless chance players with this new format even winning a free ticket seemed a million to one chance.
One man said to me that with the amount of money he has spent on lotto – he feels he has a better chance with a three-card man. Well, when people start to feel that they have more chances of winning with “3 card”-which is illegal-then you have to wonder.
Good for those who win big time and again and which company is glad to show off an enticement which is small potatoes. This is not a guessing game; its well programmed; somewhere down the line, at some point in time there is a million, 10, 20, 30, 40 million, a pot of gold waiting for someone, and that is the ideal, the dream the great imagination that lures and drives the poor and that maybe, just may-be same day she/he might be the holder of a ticket to change life around completely. But you can’t beat the odds, as I mentioned it’s so well programme.
And yes, even so we do keep playing, reaching for the sky. I was so amused lately when I purchased a scratch and got four match-ups-four wins on that card but won only a measly $800.00, $200.00 each for every win! Which reminds me of “pull the string;” as a little boy, where the strings for the radio, clock, pyrex bowl and pressure cooker are never pulled. Sometime we even would ask them to show us the strings attached to these items just to make sure, and they do! But then the strings are cut short at the top, never among those we are selecting from.
I can imagine the voices of condemnation from the pure at heart: “don’t waste your money on a game of chance”. Good advice, but easier said than done. Poor people do take chances.
If my memory serves me will I think that it was elder brother Eusi Kwayana who in making reference to the use of the lotto fund stated that it was the money of the poor. And who can deny that. The rich play for the sake of playing and obviously hoping to win also, but the money they risk is affordable, I think they call it disposable income, which the poor never have
On the other hand, the poor risk more, since they would often stake from the little they have – even their last dollar and hope and pray to all the Gods that their luck spring. Based on common sense, logics, the odds and the daily disappointments we can condemn such chances /actions as foolish, but still that’s what many do daily, acts of desperation that often times sinks them deeper in their impecunious states.
But they damn their lot and take risks hoping for a miracle, and that’s life! There was this brother who said to me: “buddy is either lotto or coke because is like I forever broke” but I gon try with the lotto, ah too old fuh tek lock-up now”.
Illusive as wining is, try telling people not to play, there is this hope, a genuine hope that burns within, and for long as it is around people will play until they have totally lost every ounce of faith and cease to dream. And make no mistake, there are some who by their religion are condemned if they play but do feel the need to take a chance.
Editor, there is a very annoying situation in Linden with respect to purchasing of lotto and scratch. As far as I know there are only two machines in Linden both on the Mackenzie shore-just about 300 yards apart; one at “Richard’s Cheap Corner” store, the other at Joe Barns Electrical Store. Would you believe that one has to wait for five minutes for one ticket! Yes sir; someone buying four/five tickets in front of you and the waiting sends you nuts, not to mention having ‘ten persons to wait on.
At Joe Barns sometimes it’s a bit quicker, but at Richard’s cheap corner it terrible! ridiculous; they tell customers that the machine does the processing very slow, sometimes it brakes down completely.
If one is lucky to win on a scratch, it’s no different, you stand there at Richard’s for five /ten minutes to collect your $500.00 or another tickets as you please. This is totally un acceptable; when poor folks have to endure all sorts of poppycock, staking their last dollar on taking a chance.
Frank Fyfee

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