In America, the hype surrounding the recent Mega Millions $640m jackpot has morphed into melodrama. One of the three winning tickets was sold in Maryland, although its ownership is a matter of some debate. A Haitian immigrant named Mirlande Wilson, who belonged to a lottery pool with her co-workers at McDonald’s, claims to have the winning ticket. But Wilson also claims that she bought the winner with her own money, rather than the tickets she was tasked with buying for the group. Naturally, her co-workers are crying ‘bullshit’ and that she’s just trying to avoid sharing the wealth. The situation directly parallels the recent snafu surrounding Americo Lopes’ failed attempt to cheat his co-workers out of their rightful millions.
The scenes of thousands of Nevada residents queued up along the California border to purchase lottery tickets has got some Nevadans questioning why their state allows every conceivable form of gambling except lotteries. Gov. Brian Sandoval’s spokesperson told the Las Vegas Sun that it’s “not appropriate for the state to compete with our number one industry” and MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren told KSNV TV that he’s also opposed to lotteries. (Hey, weren’t Nevada casinos also opposed to online poker until they suddenly weren’t?) Meanwhile, a California Lottery spokesman claims that store on the Nevada/California border is consistently the top ticket seller in the state. “And it wasn’t close.”
Utah is another state with no lottery, and lottery retailers along the Idaho border are ever so grateful. The Salt Lake Tribune crunched some Idaho Lottery Commission sales figures for 2011, and came to the conclusion that 19.4% of total ticket sales came from lottery retailers along the Utah border. In fact, the top-five ticket sellers are all located along the border. One such retailer told the Trib that “99%” of her ticket sales were to Utah residents. Alexis Daniels said she’d “just like to say thank you to all the people from Utah who come up to buy tickets.” And presumably, Daniels would offer a big shout-out to Utah’s backward politicians for denying their citizens a little harmless fun.