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Critics of the lottery call it nothing more than a scam that sells hopes and dreams to the poor. Is this true? Does the lottery target the poor? See for yourself here in this installation of "Geeks on Caffeine." Note: The author requests that you visit his web site and refrain from pasting the cartoon within the thread. Thanks!

He — Ray Otero, superintendent, ordinary luckless guy — should have the cash, the car, the sexy Swedish girlfriend. The numbers alone demanded it: Last year, he spent $30,000 on the lottery. The winner, Richie Randazzo, spent a measly thirty bucks or so a week. “When I heard he won, I got so mad — I said to myself, ‘I can’t believe it,’ ” Mr. Otero said the other day, recalling how the television crews descended on his friend in a free-for-allish media display. “I spend all that money and the” — unprintable fellow — “wins? It’s wrong. I mean,...

On Oct. 3, 1985, you could have stood in a long line outside a liquor store a few blocks from the Capitol for a chance to buy a small piece of cardboard and win a big sum of money. Today, you can do the same thing – only with no line. That, in 50 words, is the story of the California Lottery – a 23-year-old anachronism that is among the worst performing of the country's 42 state lotteries. While many other states' lotteries set sales records in the fiscal year that ended June 30, California lottery officials announced that revenues...

SACRAMENTO – Seven years of deficits have left the state budget so far out of balance that a Republican legislative leader is saying that closing a huge budget gap with cuts alone is unworkable. Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto said he remains staunchly opposed to tax increases and is now proposing that the state borrow – possibly from funds for local government, transportation and other programs – and quickly repay the loans with money from bonds backed by the lottery. “What we would like to do is see the state get its spending in line with its revenue,”...

The victim told deputies she turned $20,000 over to a man she met on a Corona street corner Tuesday morning after he told her he had a winning lottery ticket but could not cash it because he had no papers and could not find the Mexican consulate.

Barack and Michelle Obama’s personal statements deceive prospective donors Despite at least one (and possibly more) complaints from Minnesota law enforcement agencies, the Obama campaign is still circulating E-mails that solicit donations in exchange to win an expenses-paid trip to the Democratic National Convention. Were it not for the very fine print disclaimers in the E-mails and on the donation page itself, this would very likely constitute an illegal lottery. In other words, the Obama campaign is doing the absolute minimum it thinks it needs to do to stay out of actual trouble with the law. In addition, a video...

" NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - When it comes to purchasing lottery tickets, making people feel poor will prompt them to spend more money on a chance to become rich, American researchers said. They found that people who were convinced they were earning a low salary bought nearly twice as many lottery tickets compared to others who were made to feel more affluent. "When people are made to feel subjectively poor, they end up buying more lottery tickets which is somewhat perverse since every time you buy a lottery ticket, it's the equivalent of burning money," said George Loewenstein, a...

Campaign tries to keep supporters from seeing controversy over fundraising lottery We reported previously (http://husaria.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/were-obamas-lottery-winners-picked-in-advance/) that the Obama campaign, in response to complaints from Minnesota’s Department of Public Safety, modified its fundraising lottery to allow people to enter without making a donation. It was the opinion of Minnesota law enforcement that, prior to this change, the need to make at least a small donation in exchange for a chance toan expenses-paid trip to the Democratic National Convention constituted an illegal lottery. There is also a question as to whether the winners were really picked randomly, noting that a previous lottery...

Is it normal to name lottery winners before the entry deadline? We previously reported (http://husaria.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/did-the-obama-campaign-violate-lottery-laws/) that the Obama campaign has, on at least three occasions, conducted what are allegedly illegal lotteries. The E-mail and online solicitations included: 1. Payment of consideration, in the form of a donation of at least some money. 2. An element of chance 3. A prize (expenses-paid trip to have dinner with Obama or meet Obama at the Democratic National Convention Only after Minnesota’s Department of Public Safety (law enforcement) complained to the Obama campaign that it was running a potentially illegal lottery (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69150) did the...

Were the winners really picked at random? One winner was announced before the entry deadline! WorldNetDaily reported recently that the Obama campaign was contacted by Minnesota's Department of Public Safety with regard to a fundraising solicitation that could be construed as an illegal lottery. The E-mail, which we also received, seems to contain the three elements that constitute a lottery: 1. Payment of consideration (a monetary donation) 2. An element of chance 3. A prize (all-expenses paid trip to the Democratic National Convention and a personal meeting with Barack Obama While we are not attorneys and cannot give legal advice,...

California Proposes Sales Tax Hike To Fund Transport, Government Services July 18, 2008 11:32 a.m. ESTVittorio Hernandez - AHN News WriterSacramento, CA (AHN) - To close California's $17.2 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considered on Thursday hiking the state sales tax and using funds intended for transportation and government services.State legislators proposed the two measures, which the governor initially described as bad ideas, but he did not rule out adopting the measures to avoid a cash crisis in California.The lawmakers plan to close the budget gap by collecting $5.6 billion income tax increase on the rich and borrowing $1.1...

The most recent E-mail we received from the Obama campaign seems to contain the three elements that constitute a lottery. (Not legal advice, we are not attorneys.) 1. Payment of consideration (a donation of any size to the Obama campaign, with $25.00 being recommended) 2. An element of chance (lucky winners will be picked to meet with Obama in person) 3. A prize (a personal meeting with Barack Obama) WorldNetDaily reports (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69150), in fact, that the Obama campaign previously modified its donation Web page to remove the need to send any money because of exactly this issue but today, July...

Friend -- I wanted you to be the first to hear the news. At the Democratic National Convention next month, we're going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we've opened it up throughout this campaign. Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his. On Thursday, August 28th, he's scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination in a speech at the convention hall in front of the assembled delegates. Instead, Barack will leave the convention hall and join more than 75,000 people for a huge,...

TALLAHASSEE -- Fed up with watching your gas tank consume cash? The Florida Lottery has tapped into your fuel fetish with its new game, ``Gas for Life.'' Over eight weeks of weekly drawings, the Lottery will hand out five ''Gas for Life'' prizes of $52,000 in cash and 50 ''Gas for a Year'' gas cards -- $100 each to arrive at the winner's home every two weeks for 26 weeks. They are just some of the 448 prizes pegged to the ''Summer Cash'' drawing, which will run weekly from June 30 through Aug. 26. Participants will pay $5 per ticket...

The Oregon Health Plan:The Reality of When the Government Runs Health Care "Elect me and your health care problems will all be over." The people of Oregon fell for that line almost 20 years ago. Expecting Utopia, what they got was a reality check: long lines for a lottery to pick who's covered and suicide coverage--instead of cancer drugs. In 1989. Oregon became the second State, after Hawaii, to attempt complete medical coverage of it's citizens. It has not gone as planned. In fact, it seems to be approaching disaster. Within a few years: In early 2003, the Oregon Health...

ROANOKE | The Virginia Lottery has taken in millions of dollars illegally by misrepresenting the prize money available for its "Scratcher" games, according to a Washington & Lee University business professor. Scott Hoover contends that the lottery has not ordered retailers to pull shipments of tickets from Scratcher games after the top prizes have been awarded, meaning players are buying tickets with no chance of winning the largest prize promised on the ticket. John Fishwick, an attorney representing Mr. Hoover, has filed a notice of a claim with the lottery seeking refunds of $84.7 million to those who purchased an...

Undercover agents rooted out a handful of people in San Bernardino County this week suspected of scamming convenience- store customers out of lottery winnings, authorities said. Over the past few months, California Lottery agents took winning scratchers and turned them in to convenience stores throughout the county. Two store owners and two clerks claimed the scratchers were not winners and later tried to cash the tickets themselves, authorities said. Those arrested Wednesday on suspicion of grand theft were: Wasel Moussa, owner of Jay's Market at 1855 N. Baker St. in Ontario; Sukhbir Singh, clerk at Redlands Gas and Food Market...

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Arkansas college administrators are already looking to a proposed state lottery to help solve an expected $1 billion shortfall in financial aid to students over the next three decades, even before the issue makes it onto the November ballot, e-mail exchanges obtained by The Associated Press show. Jim Purcell, director of the state Department of Higher Education, acknowledged in an e-mail to the governor's office that funding for college programs remains locked in a "death spiral to the bottom." Purcell urged the governor to defer all new scholarship ideas unless voters support the lottery measure backed...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is hoping to raise $15 billion to jump-start a rainy day budget reserve by borrowing against future state lottery revenue, although administration officials bristle at the notion that the plan amounts to borrowing. "The governor's proposal is not to borrow from the lottery," Schwarzenegger press secretary Aaron McLear said Wednesday. "The proposal is to sell, outright, a portion of future lottery profits. This is a big difference." Schwarzenegger's lottery proposal is a key piece of his plan to erase California's $15.2 billion budget deficit and balance spending and revenue for the fiscal year that begins in July....

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday will propose borrowing against future state lottery revenue to help close a $15.2 billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year. The governor will propose raising $15 billion in the next three years by selling bonds based on anticipated lottery revenue. He will use about $5.1 billion of that for the 2008-09 fiscal year to help erase the deficit, administration officials said Tuesday. The other $10 billion would be left in a reserve fund the governor wants to create as part of a budget-reform proposal. It would be intended to ease the effect...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose borrowing against future state lottery revenue to help close a $15.2 billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year. Administration officials told The Associated Press that the governor on Wednesday will propose raising $15 billion over the next three years by selling bonds based on anticipated lottery revenues and using about $5.1 billion in the 2008-08 fiscal year to help erase the deficit. The other $10 billion would be left in a rainy day fund the governor wants to create as part of a budget reform proposal to ease the effect of...

BATON ROUGE, La. - A construction company owner who lost two homes in Hurricane Katrina claimed a $97 million Powerball prize, a jackpot won off a ticket he bought at a convenience store where he stopped to buy his wife a gallon of milk. When he turned in the winning ticket, Carl Hunter became the largest Powerball winner in Louisiana's history. He won the jackpot in January, but the 73-year-old small businessman waited nearly four months to claim the prize. An avid lottery player, Hunter said he already had bought a Powerball ticket on Jan. 16 at the gas station...

The world, or at least a small corner of it, was hers a year ago. Doris Murray, mother of four, had won $5 million in the Georgia Lottery on her 41st birthday. She posed for a photograph with big ceremonial check at the Amba Food Store in East Dublin, where she had bought her winning lottery ticket. And, according to a press release from the Georgia Lottery Corp., she declared "This is the best birthday ever." On Monday, Murray was found dead in the same modest block home she had lived in on Barnes Road in the south-central Georgia town...

TAMPA - Former lottery multimillionaire Alex Toth, who was broke and facing tax fraud charges, has died at the age of 60. Toth was scheduled to go on trial in June, accused of filing fake tax returns with his wife, Rhoda, who has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. By the time the couple were charged in 2006, authorities said they appeared to have no assets. The $13 million Florida Lotto money won 18 years ago was long gone, and the Hudson couple were living in squalid conditions, their only electricity coming through an extension cord rigged to their car...

He hit the lottery jackpot in 2005, but three years on, ex-soldier is destitute, down and out in budget guesthouse. HE does odd jobs to make ends meet, claims welfare benefits and lives in a £15 ($40) a night guesthouse. It's hard to believe that just three years ago, ex-British soldier Peter Kyle hit the lottery jackpot of £5.1 million. Today, the 55-year-old divorcee has squandered all his winnings and is virtually destitute, reported The Daily Mail. It is claimed he also owes money. A source told The Daily Mail that Mr Kyle lost his money after making a string...

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - David Sneath has worked at a Ford Motor Co. parts warehouse for 34 years, but it didn't take him any time at all to walk out once he discovered he had won a $136 million Mega Millions jackpot. "I yelled to the boss, 'I'm out of here,'" Sneath said Thursday after going to state lottery headquarters in downtown Lansing to pick up his first $1 million check. Sneath, of Livonia in suburban Detroit, said the reality of his win has yet to sink in. "I still haven't touched base with Earth yet," he said. When...

TORONTO - A Toronto butcher shop manager says he's making good on a promise to God by giving away more than 22,000 kilograms of chicken legs after winning a $14.5-million lottery jackpot. Jose Lima has been playing Lotto 6-49 for a decade and says he always vowed to share his wealth if he were to ever win. He hit the jackpot last week and offered to give $5,000 to each of his 50 employees, as well as free chicken legs to his customers and low-income community members. Lima ordered 22,680 kilograms of chicken legs to hand out in 4.5- kilogram...

NEW BEDFORD, Mass.—A New Bedford man who lived a modest life even after winning a $5 million lottery jackpot has died in a fire. Authorities say 85-year-old John Gonsalves Sr. died Thursday after being overcome by smoke in his home. The fire was determined to be accidental, most likely caused by smoking materials. Gonsalves won a $5.1 million Megabucks jackpot in 1994, yet he didn't let the fortune change his life. His son, John Junior, says his father enjoyed the freedom the money gave him, and liked to buy nice clothes and jewelry, yet he wasn't frivolous and remained the...

Millionaire lottery winner goes back to job at McDonald's... because he misses his workmates Lucky Luke Pittard scooped a £1.3m fortune, but applied to get his old job back because he missed his workmates. Luke, 25, and his girlfriend Emma Cox, 29, worked together at the branch of McDonald's when they hit the jackpot. The couple hung up their uniforms and settled down to domestic bliss with three-year-old daughter Chloe in a £230,000 home, splashing out on an expensive wedding and a holiday to the Canaries. But 18 months after his bonanza win the novelty of life without work has...

TODAY--IN MY E-MAIL--I found it!!! "YAHOO LOTTERY OFFICE Dear Winner...Your E-mail Account Has Won US$1,000,000.00 Dollars!!" And...if THAT weren't enough, I also found THIS e-mail in the very same load of...well, load: "Target Promotion Group [BANNIE], Your $1,000 Target Gift Card has arrived - Confirm For Shipment!"

Keno machines would come from Rhode Island company. COLUMBUS) - The Ohio Lottery plans to spend almost $18 million on equipment to operate its new keno games. The Ohio Lottery commission is asking a legislative panel that approves unbid contracts to release the money at its meeting next monday. The contract would go to Rhode Island-based GTECH Corp., which provides the machines for current lottery games. The state anticipates making $73 million a year off the new game and putting that toward reducing an anticipated $733 million shortfall in the state budget. Critics characterize the keno game as similar to...

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Powerball lottery officials said one winning ticket was sold for Saturday night's $276 million jackpot, and the supposed winners live awfully close to Pittsburgh. Roger Magro said he thought his wife Crystal was "full of baloney" when she told him she and her co-workers had purchased the winning Powerball ticket. But he said she was so adamant that it finally started to sink in. The ticket belonging to the eight women from the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department Tax Office still has to be validated by the West Virginia Lottery. If the ticket checks out, the eight would...

Charles Spaulding Jr. spends about $90 of his monthly $1,300 income on the Ohio Lottery. The 68-year-old retired truck driver says his favorite game is Mega Millions, which has odds of 1-in-176 million for its top prize. "I've just about lost hope on it," the East Side resident said recently after buying a ticket at the Yearling Market & Carryout in Whitehall. "I'm not going to spend every penny on it. If I see I'm getting low on money, I pass it up."

An Iraq war veteran in Spokane, Washington, wins a $1 million lottery

After completing two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Wayne Leyde won $1 million from a scratch-and-win lotto ticket on Tuesday. Now that he's won, Leyde, a 26-year-old member of the Washington National Guard, says he's still going to volunteer to go back to Iraq for a third tour and won't spend any of the money in the meantime. Leyde was driving near his home in Mead, Washington when he stopped at a store on the side of the road and bought a ticket. "I decided to walk into a local Zip Trip. I got a Coke and beef jerky and walked...

The Texas Lottery Commission will continue allowing tickets sales in stores that permit smoking after earlier weighing a ban urged by anti-smoking and civil rights activists... The issue has been smoldering since 2006 when Billy Williams, 77, of Lewisville, complained to lottery officials that he suffered an asthma attack after buying a lottery ticket at a store that allowed smoking. He argued that the federal Americans with Disabilities Act protects him and others from having to buy tickets at smoky stores. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat who asked Abbott for the opinion, said the commission's decision fell short...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is dramatically overestimating the jackpot the state could collect if it sold the rights to operate the lottery to an outside company, according to confidential Wall Street analyses. Moreover, to make the venture more attractive and command a higher price from an outside company, California might have to relax its gambling laws and allow a major expansion of the lottery. Critics say that means Schwarzenegger would be balancing the budget on the backs of the working class and the many poor people who avidly buy tickets. With California facing a $14.5 billion shortfall, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez...

UXBRIDGE, Mass. -- A convicted Level 3 sex offender has won $10 million in the Massachusetts State Lottery. The Worcester Gazette & Telegram reports 56-year-old Daniel Snay, of Uxbridge, could now face charges because he failed to notify authorities that he had moved, according to Connecticut State Police. “I’m flabbergasted,” Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance told the Telegram. “His whereabouts, until you told me about this, have been unknown to us. But I guess you could say he’s very fortunate.”

A Manhattan deli clerk may have sliced his last salami - after selling himself the winning ticket to the biggest scratch-off lottery jackpot in state history. Waleed Alsaidi, 22, will take home $10,000 per week for the rest of his life - about $6,450 after taxes are withheld - after getting lucky in the New York Lottery's "Win for Life Spectacular" game. The Yemen native said that he bought the ticket as a present to himself while working the lonely late shift on New Year's Eve at his family's S&M Deli on Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

D.C. officials were told last year that lax enforcement of security procedures made it possible for a handful of contract employees to steal tens of thousands of dollars in lottery tickets and prize money, according to records released this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the D.C. Lottery and Charitable Games Control Board. An investigation conducted by Battelle Memorial Institute in August 2006 determined that the ticket thefts were most likely committed by field service technicians employed by Lottery Technology Enterprises... Lottery officials learned of questionable ticket sales in December 2005, when several District...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has scrapped his proposal to lease the state lottery to help finance a universal health care plan and instead agreed to Speaker Fabian Núñez's proposal to raise taxes on tobacco products, officials disclosed Friday. The governor also has agreed to establish a higher sliding scale fee on employers than he previously had to help finance the $14 billion plan. The new proposal calls for requiring businesses, depending on their size, to spend 1 percent to 6.5 percent of their payroll on health care or pay into a state fund. Schwarzenegger had proposed that employers pay zero to...

Lottery winner wasn't supposed to gamble By MARK PRATT, Associated Press Writer Nov 28, 2007 BOSTON - The winner of a $1 million lottery scratch ticket may not be so lucky after all: He's a convicted bank robber who isn't supposed to gamble. Timothy Elliott faces a Dec. 7 court hearing over whether he violated his probation when he bought the $10 ticket for the $800 Million Spectacular game at a supermarket in Hyannis. Elliott was placed on five years' probation after pleading guilty in October 2006 to unarmed robbery for a January 2006 heist at a bank on Cape...

Cancer patients across Britain are facing a life-or-death postcode lottery which decides whether they get vital drugs and treatment... Because there are no national regulations, every NHS trust decides which cancer drugs to offer and how much cash to spend.... New research shows some hospital trusts are spending three times more than others on fighting cancer. It is staggering proof that where you live could determine how long you live. Close analysis of the latest government figures reveals amazing discrepancies in NHS spending per patient from one Primary Care Trust to another. It shows how: Each cancer sufferer in bottom-of-the-table...

A former beauty queen is suing her airline-mechanic husband, claiming he tried to hide his lottery jackpot from her. The clues trickled in that Donna Campbell's husband was hiding something from her. Arnim Ramdass started to keep the television off at all times, then he disconnected their phone line. But the ah-ha! moment came when Campbell thumbed through the mail at their Miramar house and saw a postcard: Congratulations on the purchase of your new home.

Camelot has withdrawn its short-lived "Cool Cash" scratchcard after it required a higher than absolute zero grasp of how numbers work to understand it. According to the Manchester Evening News, to qualify for a prize, punters had to "scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card". Sadly, as the card had a decidedly wintery theme, this initially-shown figure was often below zero. Cue anarchy, as Camelot was beseiged by "dozens" of confused customers who thought they'd won, but suffered a "computer says no" snub. Among these was Levenshulme's Tina Farrel, a 23-year-old...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese lottery ticket seller has been jailed for life for fraud for taking advantage of a system flaw to cash 28 million yuan ($3.76 million) in tickets illegally, state media said Tuesday. Zhao Liqun discovered the flaw in the Welfare Lottery "3D" system in 2005 that let a person buy tickets with the right numbers within five minutes of their being announced, sources at the Intermediate People's Court in Anshan, northeastern Heilongjiang province, said. Zhao, 36, who ran three lottery stalls in Anshan, "bought" the announced numbers many times over. "He asked his neighbors and friends...

Wife's Lotto secret costs years of grief If you won a $28.5 million jackpot, would you tell your spouse? Bernice Heslop won -- and didn't tell. The legal fights continue 12 years later. BY EVAN S. BENN When Bernice Heslop opened the paper that Sunday in 1995 and saw the six Lotto numbers, her first thought must have been: ''I can't believe it. I'm RICH!'' And then, the evidence suggests, another thought formed, something like: ``Hmmmm . . . no need to tell the hubby about this.'' It was a fateful decision that has tangled three people -- Heslop, her...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled new health care legislation yesterday that relies on leasing the state lottery to a private company to generate new revenue. Schwarzenegger's plan to lease the lottery is considered more popular than raising the sales tax, which had been considered the most likely new funding source to expand health care. The governor said his $14 billion proposal to cover the state's 6.5 million uninsured residents offers the best chance for comprehensive health care reform. “We all know that the nation is watching us,” he said at a news conference yesterday. Schwarzenegger is trying to jump-start...

A father is in hiding from his furious family after tricking them into thinking he had won $85.88 million in the Euro Millions lottery. Fergus Frater, 46, promised his son Jordan, 25, a $12.5 million share of the jackpot and told his sister Lorraine that she would get a $2.5 million cut of the winnings, the Daily Mail reported. He also fooled his local newspaper, The Argus, who splashed the story on its front page. Son quits job Jordan, a struggling roofer, quit his job. He and pregnant girlfriend Lucy Scrivens planned to move to Australia with their young daughter....

MILWAUKEE - U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, already a millionaire and heir to the Kimberly-Clark fortune, is on a lucky streak. The Republican hit it big in 1997 with a $250,000 jackpot in the District of Columbia lottery. Then, last spring, he won $1,000 prize in the Wisconsin lottery, and he won another $1,000 in that lottery last week. "I got lucky," Sensenbrenner said. Sensenbrenner, 64, was born into a family that helped build Kimberly-Clark Corp., maker of Kleenex tissue and Scott paper towels, and he recently reported a net worth of about $11.6 million. He said he spends about $10...