Since 1964, the lottery has been the biggest and most prominent form of legal gambling in the United States. And it is impossible to miss. Winners of Powerball, Lotto, Mega Millions and other lotteries typically go public as a condition of getting paid. They celebrate with oversized checks, express caviar dreams and become multimillionaires overnight.
The payouts can be the very stuff of dreams. On 11 occasions, the grand prize has exceeded $1 billion. On November 7, 2022, Edwin Castro of Altadena, California won the largest lottery jackpot in American history, $2.04 billion. (His lump-sum payout was $997 million.) He treated his friends to a Fiji vacation, and invested in some pricey California real estate, including a $47 million mansion in Bel Air.
But the payouts are incredible longshots. Powerball has odds of roughly one in 292 million, Mega Millions one in 302.6 million. The only consistent winners are the 48 U.S. jurisdictions doing the selling, to the tune of some $100 billion annual ticket sales, paying out only around $64 billion. Percentage wise, that’s a paltry 64 percent. Consider that slot machines in Las Vegas routinely cough up more than 90 percent of the dollars wagered. Even the most sucker-attracting games in the casino are better for players. One of the worst bets you can make at the craps table, wagering on any seven, for example, pays off some 83 percent of the time.
“Nearly all state lottery offerings have house edges so high that those games would be illegal in local casinos,” says one professional gambler who’s figured out how to game certain iterations of the lottery. Not surprisingly, he won’t say how he did it or have his name attached to such exploits.
At its core, the lottery is no damned good. At least, for most of us. Clearly, however, Joan R. Ginther is not like most of us.
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Esta historia es de la edición July/August 2024 de Cigar Aficionado.
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A High Steaks Game - Gallaghers restaurant, New York's oasis for carnivores, has thrived for 96 years, playing host to a colorful crowd of sports heroes, show people and classic characters
Dean Poll, the owner of Gallaghers Steakhouse on Manhattan's West 52nd Street, has to think both like a restaurateur and the curator of a museum with an entire wing of art. Only, instead of tending to European oil paintings, Poll oversees images of Old New York. I work here every day. I am thinking about the food and staff, Poll says, sitting in a corner that could be called baseball cove. Over his right shoulder are stills of Lou Gehrig and the Yankees' Murderers' Row manager Miller Huggins. Jack Dempsey is clowning, grappling with a bat also held by Babe Ruth. "To Helen Gallagher, sincerely Babe Ruth," the inscription reads. Poll gestures toward signed caricatures of Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. "So I lose, to a certain extent, the importance of what's on the walls. But the photos are the decor. They lend some hominess to the place. It's the heart and soul of this restaurant. It's not cheap decoration. The only thing missing is the cigar smoke", adds Poll, who fancies a Partagás 8-9-8 It's what this restaurant is for 96 years.
The Enforcer - Cole Hauser, who plays the tough-as-nails cowboy Rip on the hit show "Yellowstone," has been around horses since he was a little boy
Cole Hauser looks like he can kick your ass. And kicking ass is the specialty of his most famous character, Rip Wheeler from the hit series "Yellowstone." He's the show's man in black, his dark cowboy hat often coated in trail dust, shades hiding his intense eyes, black beard covering a mouth that seldom smiles. The absolute opposite of a pretty boy, he's never chatty-and when he does talk it's often with a bit of menace in his voice. He's not the kind of guy to take a back seat to anything.
Pinball Machines - "Two kind of people in this world," Ray Liotta's character says in the 1997 movie Cop Land.
"Two kind of people in this world," Ray Liotta's character says in the 1997 movie Cop Land. Pinball people and video game people." If you're 50 or older, you might fall into the former group of gamers who are enthralled by the ringing bells, snapping flippers and the captivating combination of mechanics and electronics that make pinball irresistible. While it's the ultimate Sisyphean game-the eternal (and doomed) effort to keep an 80-gram, carbon-steel ball from going down the drainfor those who love it, it couldn't be more fun.
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A Major Celebration - pro golfer and cigar lover Xander Schauffele was ready to unwind after winning the PGA Championship in May
Cigars are meant for celebration, so when pro golfer and cigar lover Xander Schauffele was ready to unwind after winning the PGA Championship in May, he lit up.It was a time of immense relief. Despite being a marquee name in golf, with a Gold Medal and a Ryder Cup among his wins, the 30-year-old Schauffele was haunted by another distinction: the back-handed compliment of being on the list of the best golfers never to win a major. He had come ohso-close in many majors, finishing second twice, and seven times in the top 10. But in May, when his final putt-just over six feet in length-dropped for a birdie, the wait was over. He raised both arms in celebration, a huge smile spreading across his face. He was finally a major champion.
Leader of the Lost Boys
Mike Rypka loves smoking cigars with his friends so much, he bought his neighbor's house and transformed it into a smoking lounge
