Try this magic trick at your layoff-weary workplace: Make dollar bills appear out of nowhere by simply passing the hat for a collective shot at Friday's $171 million jackpot.
If nobody wins Friday's Mega Millions jackpot -- it's played in 12 states -- the new jackpot is expected to exceed $200 million.
With each successive lottery game in which the big prize is not awarded, the prize grows, drawing in more casual players.
How's that for a stimulus plan?
"We are firmly in the range of lotto fever," said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the California Lottery. "It's the casual player that comes out when the jackpots get (this) large."
A $1 move to easy street is the lure for many Americans facing layoffs, pay cuts or work furloughs -- even if the odds are astronomical.
Who doesn't want a chance to be like the 15 Shasta Lake, Calif., educators who earlier this month -- after years of playing their lucky numbers -- cashed in on a $76 million winning ticket?
It's disputed whether a down economy produces more lottery players or fewer.
Traverso said an economic jolt to consumers -- as when gas prices spiked last year -- hurts sales, but a big prize can counteract that.
"If they aren't going to AM/PM to buy gas, they aren't going inside to buy lottery tickets," he said.
Years of data help officials predict just how hot lotto fever will get. This current prize is big, but it's less than half the $390 million jackpot awarded by Mega Millions in 2007.
"Everyone has this image of the person who spends their last buck on a lottery ticket and wins the jackpot," Traverso said. "That usually plays out better in the movies than it does in real life."
(E-mail Ed Fletcher at efletcher(at)sacbee.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit Sacramento Bee
Post new comment