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I'll say this about the gambling industry: it sure is efficient!
Check out this example of what looks, to my untrained eye, more like an advertisement than a news article, posted just a few hours ago on Philly.com.
A New Jersey ticket came close - just as several Pennsylvania slips, including a $1 million one sold in Folcroft, did last week.
But only one North Carolina ticket hit all the numbers drawn Saturday night to win Powerball's $141.4 million jackpot.
The Jersey ticket did win $200,000, as did seven others, for having the first five numbers - 14, 22, 52, 54 and 59 - but not the Powerball of 4. Missouri had two such winners, while Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas had one apiece.
Now the biggest jackpot around is the $32 million Mega Millions has up for grabs tomorrow night.
Powerball's top prize will be $20 million for Wednesday night's drawing.
Not to knock the author, or to suggest there's anything uncommon about this particular article: The Inquirer and Daily News post articles about the lottery all the time. Philly.com has a special link for it.
Sure, it's "news"; so's the fact, to a few people, anyway, that I once ate a piece of deodorant, thinking it was cabbage. But it's not much news. It is, however, exactly what the Lottery and the states that sponsor lotteries (and therefore get a cut) want: more players, more perceived legitimacy, more free advertising.
So close are these two institutions, in fact – the newspaper and the lottery – that Philly.com plugs both:
For more lottery information, go to http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lottery, www.powerball.com or www.megamillions.com.
I suggest the company takes its own pandering advice: visit the lottery websites yourself, stop wasting staff time handing out free ads to Big Gambling, and get back to what you're supposed to be trying desperately to preserve: actual journalism.
One. Trick. Pony.
Unfair, Dice Roller: I've also got a story about eating a pound of bait shrimp. But thanks for the insightful contribution!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Philly News Now and Yancey @YanceyG, lottery. lottery said: http://www.cash2day.ws How, exactly, does the lottery count as news? http://bit.ly/cR2o3M http://www.mad2miss.ws [...]
There is no need to thank me. Your insightful contributions and witty exclamation pointed responses are gratitude enough. The anticasino movement should give thanks for having a reporter who takes anything they say and runs with it!
Actually, if you read Isaiah's casino coverage closely, you'll see that there are very few stake-holders he HASN'T spoken with on the subject. The anti-casino folks just happen to be least evasive.
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