Pathological Gamblers Flock to Buy No-Chance Tickets

(FiniteTimes.com) – When Manny Alberez ripped open his morning paper to check on his horse stats, ball scores and pick-three numbers, his eyes quickly settled on a story that made his heart race like a wheel of fortune before ticking back to a more rhythmic beat.

“This guy in the south was suing the state because the big prize for a scratch ticket he bought had already been won,” Manny recalls. He was referring to business professor Scott Hoover, who this week announced he was suing the state of Virginia for breach of contract related to their “Beginner’s Luck” scratch tickets. “And I was thinking like wow, no chance? Those are crazy odds. And then I got what we in the gambling world call a boner.”

Manny’s boner (or Wagerer’s Woodie, as it is known in academic circles), was not unique. Over the next couple of days, pathological gamblers of all stripes and persuasions poured into the state of Virginia looking to snap up Beginner’s Luck tickets. From Cassie’s Café in Clarksville to the Presidential Petroleum Emporium in Jeffersonton, scratch tickets have been flying off the counters at an unprecedented rate.

“We went through the Beginner’s Luck tickets in a couple of hours, then started going through Chicken Scratch for Cash, Poison Ivy Relief and Free Money is for Lovers,” says Rusty Jones, who dresses up as Benjamin Franklin to hawk the Presidential Petroleum Emporium’s award-winning Poor Richard’s Weeners. “If you look around, you’ll see they’ve started scratching away at our fine collection of Suburban DC Landmark postcards and our Faces of the Senate Trading Cards.

“They’re crazy,” Rusty says, holding up a Hillary Clinton trading card, several gouges scratched prominently into her teal pantsuit.

Professor Hyde Dwight, a professor at the Yale School of Psychiatry and co-founder of the gambler’s recovery group Dry Rollers, disagrees with Rusty’s diagnosis.

“Crazy, not at all. But they are very sick people,” Professor Dwight tells The Finite Times. “I’ve had a chance to talk to some of these folks, and they literally think that there may in some way be a loophole to this whole no-chance scenario.

“Perhaps there was a clerical error, or the store clerk made a mistake. A conspiracy among lottery officials is quite popular, as is the belief that the Chinese Mafia has been counterfeiting tickets to raise money in a bid to throw the Olympic games. I’ve seen that one at 13:1 odds, last I checked.”

As for Manny Alberez, his failure to win in the no-win Virginia situation has soured him to the gambling lifestyle, and he has pledged to get help for his addiction.

“My name’s in the hat down at Dry Rollers,” Manny says. “They pick a name to fill an opening every day, and today, well… Today I feel lucky.”

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