Bookies going way of numbers racket?

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled this week that states ought to have the right to come up with legal ways for people to place bets on ballgames without having to worry about the long arm of the law treating them like criminals.

HARRIS: Tried to take Ill. lead on issue

Yet I can’t help but think that for many people, the idea of going to an officially-sanctioned betting parlor to place a few bucks down on a sports event won’t have much appeal.

FOR THEM, THE notion of the bookie and the illicit nature of their act IS the whole point. The last thing they want to do is partake in an event in which the state would take a cut of the proceeds – and would be responsible for guaranteeing that the prize is actually paid off if they win.

Because for the kind of people inclined to want to place bets on sports events, the motivation is the payoff. They want to win the prize, and likely could care less about the ball game itself.

So long as they beat the spread, who actually wins is irrelevant. Just like in the early days of riverboat casinos when some thought people would enjoy the idea of a cruise while placing bets – only to find out people only cared about the bet and those “boats” are all now land-based.

As for those people who all those years showed their devotion to Chicago Cubs baseball placed a bet annually in Las Vegas that their favorite ballclub would win the World Series? Suckers!!!

SO I WAS somewhat amused to hear some people react to the Supreme Court’s ruling by saying that sports betting could actually increase interest in sports events. Not likely.

Unless you want to think of sports fans as the ultimate chumps eager to waste their time and throw away their money by playing the odds of how a particular ballgame goes.

I don’t know how Illinois will wind up structuring a sports betting system, although I’m sure our political people will be greedy enough to want to have another revenue stream to tax. They’ll probably also try defining the concept as being something similar to the Illinois State Lottery and all those games people can play on the potential promise of a payoff. State Sen. Napoleon Harris, D-Harvey -- himself a one-time professional football player -- already has a bill introduced on the issue.

How many placed bet, for kicks, and wound up winning?

Fantasies of being set for life financially, just by picking the right set of numbers.

I MAKE THE lottery comparison because I can recall my own time as a full-time police reporter-type person – which was in the late 1980s and I can recall the occasional stories I’d write about busts and raids that were conducted related to the “illegal lottery,” which is what once was commonly known as the numbers racket.

You play your number and place your bet with a bookie – who in some cases would take as little as a nickel bet, with the potential payoff of $30-40 if you got the right set.

Or nothing, if you were in the majority who didn’t get the right number.

Of course, you’d have to take the chance that the bookie was an honorable sort who’d actually pay up on the people who “won” and wasn’t just counting on all the nickels of losers to add up to dollars that would enrich themselves.

YOU MIGHT WONDER why anybody would keep playing numbers when they could just plop down a dollar or two for lottery tickets and a potentially larger prize. Yet for some people, the official lottery came with too many rules and too much structure and regulation. The illicit overtones are what make it worth doing, while those who prefer a so-called "legitimate" bookmaker probably aren't going to bet enough to make it worth anyone's while financially.

How sport, and gambling really don't mix

Gamblers preferred the informal and unofficial nature of the old numbers racket. Just as I’m sure they’re going to prefer to place bets through a bookie on whatever basketball or football game catches their attention.

So for all the people who think that sports betting will make the state of Illinois wealthy (or at least capable of paying all its bills in a timely maner), I suspect that listeners of the old WMAQ-AM radio had better odds of achieving wealth.

Remember back when one could win a prize if the station called you, and your unsolicited response was, “WMAQ’s gonna make me rich!”

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No more Mega-Millions!?! @$$#%!

We’re coming up on the two-full-year mark of not having a budget proposal for Illinois state government, yet about the most outraged the public has become was that point in time in October of ’15 when state officials said the financial problems would cause payments to be delayed to Illinois Lottery game winners.
 

Soon to be no more?

The people who lamely played their numbers (or let the ‘quick pick’ option do it for them) learned that their “jackpot” wasn’t going to come anytime in the near future. They’d have to get in line and wait like everybody else who does business with the state.

THAT, I RECALL, ticked people off enough to file lawsuits demanding immediate payment of their newly-found fortunes. They weren’t going to wait one minute for the prize money they thought they were entitled to.

In short, it was this relatively trivial aspect of state government finances that caught the attention of the public and probably was the first bit of attention many people paid to the fact that we have our government in operating mode without any specific plan for how it is spending money.

The lottery can do that for you; it will capture the attention of the public, particularly those with no work ambition who seriously are banking their future on the off-chance of a game-winning prize.

Perhaps those kind of people who watch re-runs of the old “Roseanne” show and think that program’s final season (in which she wins $108 million in the Illinois Lottery and goes through many life-changing experiences) is their fantasy come true!

WHICH IS WHY it was significant last week when reports indicated the state’s financial problems are again impacting the lottery.

It’s the Mega-Millions and Powerball games – those multi-state initiatives that the Illinois Lottery cooperates with that, because so many people get involved, have the potential to create such large prizes so quickly.

They’re popular for those people who really want to dream about what they’d do with a couple hundred million dollars, but wouldn’t have a clue how to earn money legitimately.

It seems the inability of the state to promptly pay its bills is causing bureaucratic complications that will mean Illinois will no longer participate in those particular games. The Illinois Lottery will go back to just its standard weekly draws and its instant scratch-off games.

AFTER WINNING ALL those millions, how are we going to get people to want to play when the potential prize is an instant game $5?

It’s literally like that old World War I-era jingle, “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm? After They’ve Seen Paree?” Or maybe we’ll be asked to believe that these new lottery prizes are something special – like Paris, Ill., the Edgar County town of some 6,100 people.

It was interesting to see the Capitol Fax newsletter out of Springfield the other day – as it published tidbits hinting it might actually be the state pulling out of the lottery games, rather than the state being dumped.

Although as WBBM-TV reported recently, the two games do kick back to the state a share of the proceeds from tickets sold here – totaling some $122 million. Not a petty sum.

BUT ALSO NOT something that helps the state much since, without a formal budget in place, we can’t spend the money on anything – except for those state programs that have federal court orders insisting they operate regardless of the state’s ineptitude.

I can’t help but wonder how the outrage will be expressed. Will we literally get people picketing for their right to play Powerball? Will the Mega Millions be the issue that causes the public to put pressure on the politicos to get off their derrieres and act?

 

Enough to make some of us honorary Hoosiers?

Will we experience a continued sense of apathy? Or will we see the rush of people across the state line to Indiana, seeking out every convenience store, gas station and cheap smokes shop with a “Hoosier Lottery” sign so they can buy their Powerball tickets there?

Will lottery tickets become like gasoline; something that people who live near the border make a special trip across State Line Road to purchase because the local option is just so ridiculous by comparison?

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Powerball prize just a myth? At least it seems like a great big one to me!

As I write this, I’m preparing to pick up my parents from the airport (Midway) as they return from a weekend trip to the casinos of Las Vegas, Nev.

My loser ticket. I don't feel need for another

At that time, I’ll be able to tell them they lost again – at Powerball. Although I’m sure they already realize they’re not big winners, they didn’t win that drawing last week.

THE ONE THAT could have paid out about $800 million!

Which results in the prize rolling over, and some estimates saying it could be a $1.4 billion prize to a single winner when the next drawing is held.

Now my interest in this is literally that I’m holding a Powerball ticket from the Saturday drawing that nobody won. In my case, I bought five chances (a $10 bet) and only came up with one matching number.

I bought the ticket for my father, who literally called me from Las Vegas on Saturday to ask me to make the purchase.

MAYBE HE THOUGHT he’d have something big to come home to if his losing streak in Nevada continued throughout the weekend. It seems I placed a crummy bet.

Which is why I have to admit all the enthusiasm and ecstasy that some people feel about gambling is totally lost on me. I don’t get why people are so eager to dump a few bucks of their hard-earned money on tickets.

As I see it, the $800 million promise of last weekend was a myth. Whereas the $10 bill I had in my wallet was real, and all I have to show for it now is a slip of paper laced with some sort of chemical that if I tried to eat my losses, I’d get a rancid taste in my mouth.

Then again, it’s not just lottery tickets that lose me. The whole casino experience leaves me dry – even though the last time I set foot in one, I actually walked out with about $50 more than I walked in there with.

MY THANKS TO the people of the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Ind., for that little financial boost. Although I also have embedded in my mind the sight of a woman who tried three different credit cards in a cash machine and wound up having all of them rejected – because she had bet so much and lost.

Thank goodness for the activist-types who often get derided for ruining people’s fun for saving that woman from losing even more cash that day.

In my own case, part of my lack of enthusiasm for gambling is that I’m cheap. You have to be willing to bet big, and often, in order to boost your chances of winning a significant prize – and I’m just not willing to do that.

Realize that I’m fully aware of the fact that my step-mother (if she ever reads this) will regard such thoughts as heresy. For all I know, I may get disowned from the family. Or at least uninvited to the next family get-together.

AFTER ALL, THE reason she and my father were in Las Vegas this past weekend was a birthday celebration. I won’t find out until Tuesday whether she really had a Happy Birthday!, but I suspect somehow she did.

She really does find a joy in the casino experience that is just lost on me. Or on the gambling experience in general. Somehow, seeing “dream books” piled up by the Illinois Lottery ticket machine at the convenience store in suburban Hazel Crest where I bought last week’s Powerball ticket just seemed sad.

Which is why I won’t be among those getting all giddy at the thought of a Wednesday prize that could make me a billionaire!?! Because all I’d get was another loser because I didn’t buy a dream book to tell me what number I should play because I dreamed of my brother, Chris, and I sitting in the stands at a ballgame.

Maybe if I had, my father would have some winnings to come home to.

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Retiree pensions, or lottery tickets – where are Illinois’ financial priorities?

The Illinois comptroller’s office let it be known his week that the state’s finances are such a mess due to the lack of a balanced budget in place that the payments toward the pension programs for state retirees due for November are likely to be missed.

The way things are going, the payments for December also may not be made.

YET SOMEHOW I expect the factual tidbit that will most offend people relates to the Illinois Lottery – in that officials said they have to scale back even further the level to which they can actually pay out prizes to lottery game winners.

The lack of a budget in place means the Department of the Lottery doesn’t have access to the funds that would be used to pay prizes to lottery winners.

Until this week, the lottery took the stance that any prize of more than $25,000 could not be paid. Winners received official documents confirming the state owed them the money, and that they would be paid once Gov. Bruce Rauner and the General Assembly’s leaders could put aside their partisan hang-ups and approve a budget.

But now, officials are saying the state’s finances are so tight that they cannot pay out anything more than $600. Which means that just about anyone who wins anything more than a token prize from one of those chintzy scratch-off games will not get anything.

NOW I HAVE written before that I don’t terribly sympathize with the lottery winners – some of whom seem to act as though they believe they are the ultimate victims in the ongoing political dispute over state government finances.

Nobody forces anyone to play the lottery. If they have to wait a bit, it’s not the biggest loss – particularly if the delay results in them getting interest payments on top of their prizes.

They may wind up being even bigger winners than they have any right to deserve to be.

But I have read countless Internet commentary complaining about the lottery prizes. Heck, I have received my own share of statements (all anonymous, of course) telling me how misguided I am – only in more-harsh terms than that.

IF THERE IS something that ought to be done, perhaps the Illinois lottery games themselves ought to be put on hold until such a time that the partisan politics are put aside and a budget is passed.

Although I don’t know who in their right mind would want to play lottery games where it is uncertain the prizes would be paid. That really is the equivalent of money being thrown into the toilet.

Because if it weren’t for the fact that the state is being so open about its lack of access to funds (the money does exist, taxes and fees to the state are still being collected), one could say that the Illinois lottery is a criminal racket.

How else could one describe something that takes your money with the promise of a huge payoff – then refuses to follow through on it?

TO BE HONEST, even the numbers racket operators of old had more honor than that. They made their fortunes off of large numbers of nickel bets, yet had the honesty to pay off the winners from among those whose dreams the night before resulted in some combination of numbers from a dream book.

Yet they were the “criminals,” while the modern-day lottery raises money for schools and “the children” – or at least so claims the official rhetoric.

Now I go so over the top in my rhetoric because I don’t expect the state lottery to shut down. THAT would be considered the ultimate offense by too many people – who would probably then file a lawsuit demanding the right to have a lottery so they can dream of winning their fortunes without having to work for them.

A concept that bothers me just as much as how the lack of those pension payments will cause even more problems for the state in the long-term – and not just because it gives the partisans of former Gov. Pat Quinn a reason to gloat because HE never missed pension payments during his time in office.

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Will pot replace numbers racket as source to fund public schools?

It was the early 1970s when our state created an official lottery game, and one of the selling points to encourage political people to vote for legalization of what was essentially the numbers racket of old was the notion that money raised by the lottery would be used to help fund public education programs across the state.

What wound up happening was that state officials wound up thinking they could take other sources of funding away from public school programs, on account of “all that lottery money” that allegedly was going to fund our kids’ education.

THESE DAYS, PEOPLE complain more than ever about the lack of support the state provides for education, which in reality has to rely on local property tax revenues to fund school operations.

Meaning people in wealthier communities with better schools complain they’re overtaxed. People in lower-income communities say they don’t get enough for their children to have the same opportunities as those in the previously-mentioned communities.

And many rural school districts complain that their isolation harms them all the way around.

All of this rhetoric is what came to my mind when I read a Chicago Sun-Times report quoting a Chicago attorney who is part of a group that wants to operate a cultivation center in a downstate Illinois community where marijuana would be grown.

THE POT GROWN on the property in Edgewood would be the product sold at distribution centers licensed by the state where people with a legitimate medical need would be able to purchase their marijuana.

Of course, there are those people who want to view the whole issue of “medical marijuana” skeptically – as some sort of ruse by which people will legalize a product that too many ideologues have desired to criminalize for decades.

Which is what leads attorney Jon Loevy to his current tactic; he told the Sun-Times that his business group – if they are given a license to operate a farm – would give at least half of its earnings to programs that benefit education.

So grandpa needing his marijuana-laced brownies to deal with his glaucoma? People can supposedly “get over” their mistrust by saying, “We’re looking out for the children.”

THE TRICK TO considering the procedure now is that the business entities that want to get into the medicinal marijuana business are far from actually opening their doors.

The state law that legitimized the concept says there will be 22 cultivation centers and 60 dispensary facilities across the entire state. More than 200 groups, including the one that Loevy is connected to, have applied for those licenses.

We’re now going through a process by which local governments are reviewing any proposals intended for their communities. A whole lot of City Councils and village boards are studying the talk, and deciding whether they want any such facility.

Then, the state has final say. And as assorted news reports have indicated, the state isn’t exactly coming forth with what their guidelines will be for deciding who actually gets to make money from production and distribution of marijuana without risking arrest by the local police.

SO I’M SURE a promise like the one made by Loevy could make his group stand out. For all I know, there could be other groups that follow the same lead.

It’s almost as though I can hear many dozens of Helen Lovejoys cropping up across Illinois, telling us in her Simpsons-like cry, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!?”

Although I don’t have a clue as to how much money would wind up going for schools. Or what, exactly, they would be able to use it for. I’d only hope that before such talk of using medical pot funds for school kids goes too far, we give serious thought.

Otherwise, you just know a couple of decades from now, we’re going to hear protesters complaining, “What about all that drug money that’s supposed to help our schools?”

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Are casino “promises” causing suburbs to hold off on serious development?

Every time I pass the northeast corner of Cicero Avenue and 175^th Street in suburban Country Club Hills (I have family that lives nearby), I can’t help but shake my head at the vast expanse of land that exists there.

Will people gamble their way into the red at this site?

That site has a large-scale strip mall that could grow into a shopping mall to its north, and Interstate 80 to the east. It is large enough that local officials say they’re saving it for the casino they want to develop.

THE ONE THAT would be the “south suburban” casino in the grand scheme of things by which Illinois state government ups the number of casinos operating in the state from 10 to 15.

Much of the attention on this issue has gone to the fact that one of the extra casinos would be placed in Chicago, and over whether a Chicago-based casino should be controlled by a city government agency (as in one whose director is picked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel) rather than the Illinois Gaming Board that oversees all other casinos in Illinois.

At times, the idea of a south suburban casino seems like an afterthought.

Yet when I think of the concept, I can’t help but notice the number of communities that are basing their economic future on the idea of something that isn’t currently permitted under state law!

IT MAKES ME wonder how many legitimate development opportunities are being passed on (or not even being contemplated) because everyone is banking their future on the idea of getting a casino.

Made worse by the fact that, at best, ONE community will get the dream. While some half-dozen proposals (at least, more may develop as time passes) are being considered.

There are going to be a lot of losers.

What happens to those communities who, years from now, have nothing to show for their casino dreams other than vacant land plots? Such as that one on Cicero Avenue?

PERSONALLY, I DON’T think much of the whole casino concept. I always thought of them as being for communities that were incapable of getting anything else to locate within their boundaries.

Which makes me wonder if places like Country Club Hills or Homewood (my father and step-mother, who enjoy the casino atmosphere and live just a few minutes from the proposed sites on Cicero Avenue or Halsted Street), or others like Ford Heights, Calumet City or Lynwood (which would like to put a casino right on the Illinois/Indiana border) have any kind of back-up plan?

I have heard from various municipal officials whose complaints about casinos focus on state government for taking so ridiculously long (how many years has it been now?) to make a decision.

Because they feel it puts them on hold. They can’t possibly contemplate real economic development – something that creates jobs better than being a coat-room clerk or a valet parking attendant.

AS FOR THOSE who want to argue the merits of being a black-jack dealer, I don’t really want to hear it. There are higher aspirations in life than dealing cards, and I always wonder about a community that is willing to settle for less.

Because that’s what the whole casino campaign amounts to – communities putting bets on their future in hopes that they’ll strike it rich. When anybody with sense knows that the “house” always wins! As in the casino itself.

Everybody else ultimately comes out the loser. Sometimes, I think these suburban mayors would be better off buying a Mega Millions lottery game ticket.

With all the technicalities and legalese and complications in the process of the state creating a casino, I wonder if the odds are better that they’ll win the big jackpot – as opposed to someday getting a casino.

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Lottery a sucker game, regardless of how big the jackpot gets to be

By the time you read this, there’s a very good chance that one (or maybe several) people will have matched the right numbers to claim a Mega Millions prize that will be one of the largest – if not THE largest – ever.

Way too many people paid attention to a ritual similar to this to see if they were suddenly multi-millionaires

 

The drawing was Tuesday night for a prize of $636 million, or perhaps higher if it managed to grow in the final hours between when this commentary was written and when the drawing occurred.

WITH THE LARGEST lottery prize ever being $656 million (nearly two years ago, and split between winners in rural Redbud, along with Kansas and Maryland), this could turn out to be a big deal for somebody.

I would expect the number of players for this week’s drawing will be so many that so many different combinations of numbers will be played on tickets that it will be impossible for no one to manage to win the big prize.

So I’ll issue my premature congratulations to whoever does manage to come up with the winning combination, and will say I hope that having all that money doesn’t manage to screw up their lives by creating complications that us poorer folk can’t even envision.

As for me, I’m not going to have to worry about that. I could use the money. I have debts that need to be paid.

BUT A PART of me never fails to be amazed whenever I go to a gas station and get stuck waiting in a line because somebody ahead of me feels compelled to put down $50 or so in order to buy all kinds of variations of lottery tickets – in hopes of gaining their “fortune” in a single swoop.

Or perhaps that’s single scratch. As in digging out that penny to scratch off the coating that covers up the numbers to reveal whether or not they “won” anything. As though the person who blows half a sawbuck on lottery tickets thinks they’re successful because one of those tickets manages to win a $5 prize!

Maybe it would turn out like those employees of a bakery in suburban Chicago Heights who won a significant lottery prize early this year – only to have all kinds of people try to glom on (or were they wrongly cheated out of a chance to play?) so that it will be years before anybody gets any money remaining after legal fees are paid.

Then again, I’m also the type who just doesn’t get the appeal of the casinos in places like East Chicago, Ind., Joliet or Elgin – to name a few. And even if you think this an elitist thought, I think Chicago can do better than attracting a casino to within its boundaries.

Somebody's prize? Or criminal evidence!

I DON’T HAVE any moralistic qualms about gambling – I’m all for letting people decide what to do with their own money. I just don’t get the appeal of banking it all on a chance to “win” a fortune.

Particularly since when, if you think about it, there really is no difference between the modern-day lottery and the numbers racket of old – except that the only time the latter ever made it into the news was when self-righteous types felt compelled to make some sort of police raid under the guise of protecting the public from the scourge of gambling.

Personally, I have only once played a lottery game – several decades ago, because an editor of mine came up with a unique gag gift for the Christmas holiday. He gave us all “a hope and a prayer,” as in a single lottery ticket AND a plastic, glow-in-the-dark rosary.

I didn’t win anything from that ticket, but I actually still have that rosary (which glows a real sickly shade of green) and consider it a trinket of great significance because of its personal tie to that editor.

MORE IMPORTANT THAN if I had actually won a few bucks from that ticket.

So I haven’t rushed out to claim a share of Mega Millions in some fantasy that I could quit all forms of work and turn this weblog into a rambling account of my globe-trotting activities.

Because I suspect it would turn out to be more likely that I – and many millions of other individuals who likely now are disappointed with their losses – would wind up more like an individual who attended a recent holiday party I attended Sunday.

There was a gift grab bag in which we all contributed an item, then picked a present at random. This person picked nearly $50 worth of instant game tickets.

At least I'll know what day it is

IT WAS ALMOST humorous as she then spent the next 20 or so minutes diligently scratching off her cards to figure out what she won – she wound up winning nothing! They were all losers.

Somehow, I sense the calendar (decorated with photographs by Ansel Adams) I got out of the deal will be more worthwhile.

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