She remembers the time and the day with utter clarity. It was exactly 7 PM last October 29, a Sunday evening. Julie A. was sitting in the living room of her modest apartment in the Austin neighborhood, staring at the television set and holding $40 worth of lottery tickets in her hand. The drawings had just taken place on Channel Nine, and Julie once again had not won a thing.
He didn’t know what she was talking about. She bet on the lottery? So what! Maybe she put out more than she should, but it’s no big deal.
“About $20,000,” she said.
Sharp and her associates have reversed the trend. Last year the Illinois lottery had its best year ever, with sales of almost $1.6 billion–up $240 million over the previous year. All of which provided some $800 million in prizes for winners and $590 million for the state’s Common School Fund. A major reason for the upsurge is the frequency of gigantic Lotto jackpots: $52 million last February, $70 million in April 1989. These gargantuan jackpots have been achieved by the devilishly simple device of increasing the number of balls involved in the Lotto drawing from 44 to 54. The odds against anyone picking the six winners on a one-dollar bet are thereby increased significantly, to 12,913,582 to 1–or about 20 times the odds against your being hit by lightning. The occasional rollovers of the grand prize from week to week generate scads of free publicity, mounting suspense, and epidemic last-minute ticket buying.
Sharp readily acknowledges that some people have gambling addictions, but she totally disagrees that the lottery promotes that sort of thing. “There’s a big difference between compulsive gamblers and lottery players,” she says. “First, gamblers like fast, competitive action, and the lottery is just too tame and slow to interest them. Also, gamblers like to exercise skill in picking winners; but skill is irrelevant in the lottery, which is based solely on chance.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Skill may be irrelevant now, but that could change. A development on the horizon is a sports lottery, offering players the opportunity to bet on professional football and basketball games. A proposal has been submitted to the Illinois legislature, and senate president Philip Rock says he is favorably disposed toward it, since the funds could help renovate McCormick Place and build the Bears’ new domed stadium. Sharp sees sports betting as providing a whole new clientele of wagerers who would instantly swell lottery sales by millions of dollars.
Julie went to work for a firm that owns a string of magazine and sundry stores in large downtown office buildings. She proved such a quick learner and able businesswoman that she was eventually made retail manager of eight of the stores–a responsibility that seemed to wear her down. In February 1989 she became ill–from stress, she says, and an allergic condition. When she returned, the owners cut her duties back to just one store.
