Evening star., 1934-11-06
SWEEPS ADD|CTS
LABELED DUPES
Getting a Prize Is Great, but
Chances Against Winning
Are Tremendous.

NEW YORK, November IMAM
AD.-Hundreds of stories have been
published about the prize winners In
the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes, about
the wealth which came to them so sud-
denly and fantastlcally, about their
lives, their families and their plans
for the future. AS a result, thousands
of people have become sweepstakes
conscious and now plan to boost the
ticket sale of lotteries TO come.
That's the usual effect. Nothing
weakens your grasp of hard sense and
mathematical law so much as the
news of some one else's luck You
imagine yourself in the same position,
winning $l50,000, hearing the news,
cashing the check, spending the
money Pretty soon you buy half a
book of tickets and wait, with wan
ing confidence, for the cash to roll in.
The odds against an individual
tickets winning first money in the
Irish Sweepstakes are about 100000
to /. The odds against its winning
any sort of prize, from consolation
money up, are 10000 to /. In other
words, the colored man who plays
policy in Harlem or the Chinese who
plays it in San Francisco is a smart
and willy investor compared with the
man who buys !, 5 or 40 sweepstakes
tickets.
Phoney Tickets q Factor.
The odds mentioned above are the
mathematical odds. The actual odds
against a single ticket are much
greater. For one thing you may be
holding spurious ticket and have no
chance at all. Several thousand Of
these phoney, unauthorized and worth
less chips are sold here and abroad
before each lottery.
Then there is the probability that
one-sixth of the winning tickets will
not be available for purchase and
that the prize money will be one
sixth less than the number of tickets
the Annie Oakley or commission
system. Agents and statesmen retain
two tickets in every II free of cost.
But suppose you come through
against those odds and win a prize of
some kind. The Government promptly
goes to work on you. Most ticket
buyers speculate in terms of the full
amount of the prize money. They
don't dream of taxes. If they are
dreaming of first prize they dream
of s150,00O. If they are dreaming of
consolation or residual prize they
dream of $4,000, or $50, or whatever
1t may be.
Tax Men Step In.
These dreams are never fully real
ized. The Federal Government alone
chops $4,000 to 100000 off the first
prize money, after which the bush
league assessors go into action and
lift another $4,000 or $4,000. Thus
the chances of winning and the
amounts to be won are much less
than the investor Supposes when he
lays down his $3.50 for a ticket.
And the sums and odds mentioned
apply only to the Irish Hospital
Sweepstakes, which are more honest
and munifcent than most. There are
three Irish drawings year, usually
on the Grand National, the EPSON
Derby and the Cambridgeshire. Sixty
two per cent of the take is redlS-
tributed in prize money That's fair
spread for a lottery, though the Irish
Hospital people take in anywhere
from S12,OOO,O0O to S18,000,000 per
drawing and can afford to give 1t
back on a comparatively liberal basis
The smaller sweeps are more costly
to the public, because their opera
tors are less warm-hearted and
scrupulous. The bettor gets an honest
shake from two or three, like the
Luxembourg and Canadian lotteries,
but even with these he Is powerlesS
to avoid the fake ticket evil and the
confusions of transmission ana
payment.
Finally, unless he sticks to sweeps
that are widely known and publicized,
the bettor is apt to spend his money
with no possible chance of return.
He may be investing on race that
will never be run, with firm that
has no name-dozens of fake lotteries
are staged in this country every year.
Sucker of Suckers.
So, the sweepstakes bettor is
sucker of suckers. the more so because
he allows the size Of the reward to
justify him. The average race-track
plunger has one chance in four OF
winning. The roulette player has
one in eight, the dice player one in
three. The policy addict. scorned as
the worst of all suckers, has one
chance in thousand of ringing the
bell.
These people, repeat, are giants
of business acumen compared with
the sweepstakes player, who can get
no better than a 1-to-30 900 chance
in the biggest and soundest of race
lotteries. And yet sweepstakes bet
ting is the most widely and favorably
advertised form of gambling in the
world.
The stories about the winners make
fascinating reading. They sell plenty
of tickets. I think it might be a
good idea to print, at the end of each
story of the guy who is taking a
trip to Italy, buying an expensive car,
and standing the entire neighborhood
to ice cream and bourbon, a little
tag line-300,000 to l."
(Copyright 1884. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, 1nc.)