Winning The Lottery

[00:00:00] Astonishing Legends Network.

[00:00:04] Disclaimer, this episode includes the usual amount of adult language and graphic discussions you've come to expect around here.

[00:00:10] But in the event it becomes an unusual amount, expect another call from me.

[00:00:15] Welcome back to Scared All The Time. I'm Chris Collari.

[00:00:18] And I'm Ed Vecola.

[00:00:19] In this episode, we are taking a 180 degree pivot from last week's topic.

[00:00:24] Where the big one was so scary because it's so in our face and likely to happen at any moment,

[00:00:29] this week's topic is about as likely to happen to you as getting struck by lightning or attacked by a shark.

[00:00:34] But if you're unlucky enough to experience it, it could be worse than either of those.

[00:00:39] For many people unlucky enough to have their numbers pulled,

[00:00:42] winning the lottery is one of the cruelest tricks fate will ever play on them.

[00:00:46] What they imagine to be a path to riches and a life of peaceful solitude on a tropical island

[00:00:51] instead opens the door to an onslaught of tragedy, murder, and mayhem

[00:00:56] that puts some of the other fears we've covered to shame.

[00:00:58] So cross your fingers and scratch Scared All The Time off your card.

[00:01:02] This week, we're scared of winning the lottery.

[00:01:05] What are we?

[00:01:06] Scared.

[00:01:07] When are we?

[00:01:09] All the time.

[00:01:10] Join us.

[00:01:11] Join us.

[00:01:11] Join us.

[00:01:12] Now it is time for...

[00:01:14] Time for...

[00:01:15] Scared All The Time.

[00:01:17] Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.

[00:01:20] Just a little bit of housekeeping up top as always.

[00:01:22] I think the first thing that we want to mention is we have a very exciting milestone that we're

[00:01:28] about to hit.

[00:01:29] And that is that we are 10 producers away from giving Ed a little bit of a break on the buttons.

[00:01:35] If we can get 10 more producer...

[00:01:37] I know I sound like I work for PBS and I'm like calling your house for money or something.

[00:01:41] But if we can get 10 more producers, we will have enough producer level people signed up for

[00:01:46] the pod that we can actually start ordering our buttons in batches instead of making them by hand.

[00:01:52] Which means you will get a higher quality button and Ed will continue to have hands.

[00:01:57] That's true.

[00:01:57] I need those guys to edit the fucking show.

[00:02:00] Yeah.

[00:02:00] So if you've been thinking about subscribing to the podcast, now's a great time to do it.

[00:02:05] Patreon or Supercast.

[00:02:07] Go ahead.

[00:02:08] Sign up.

[00:02:09] And if you sign up for the I'm Terrified level, you'll become a producer and you'll get

[00:02:13] a button of the month for Button of the Month Club.

[00:02:15] It would be awesome for us.

[00:02:17] We'd be really psyched about it.

[00:02:18] So if you've been thinking about it, now's the time.

[00:02:21] It's the holiday season.

[00:02:22] Get it for yourself.

[00:02:23] Gift to yourself.

[00:02:24] Gift to your significant other.

[00:02:26] Probably not for your kids.

[00:02:27] But hey, whoever, if your kids are old enough or I know some of your kids listen to this

[00:02:31] show, get them a premium subscription.

[00:02:34] Get them some buttons.

[00:02:35] That would be awesome.

[00:02:35] Yeah.

[00:02:36] And you know, just all the levels are good.

[00:02:37] I think we've been having a lot of fun in the live shows.

[00:02:39] We got more of those coming up.

[00:02:40] So everybody in scared level, we're going to be seeing you soon.

[00:02:43] I think we'll probably do a couple.

[00:02:44] We did this Discord thing.

[00:02:45] We talked about it last week.

[00:02:46] Now every day I want to just go live just for no reason.

[00:02:49] It's fun.

[00:02:50] Yeah.

[00:02:50] And just be like, hey, we're live right now.

[00:02:52] What's up?

[00:02:52] Come on by.

[00:02:53] It's fun.

[00:02:53] But then you say we're live right now.

[00:02:55] And if only two people show up, you kind of feel like...

[00:02:58] I'm going to be like, you guys want some buttons?

[00:03:01] That's true.

[00:03:02] That's true.

[00:03:02] Now that I got you here.

[00:03:03] It's like a timeshare thing when they come to our Discord.

[00:03:05] Yeah.

[00:03:05] I would say in general, keep an eye on our Instagram.

[00:03:08] Keep an eye on the Facebook page.

[00:03:10] There is a good chance that over the break, because we've got this episode and one more

[00:03:15] episode lined up for you.

[00:03:16] And then we're going to take a couple of weeks break and we'll be back for the holidays for

[00:03:19] Christmas and everything.

[00:03:20] But in that interim, there's a pretty good chance that Ed and I are going to be popping

[00:03:24] on to Discord, doing some live streams of movies.

[00:03:27] We're experimenting with Twitch.

[00:03:29] Twitch is trying to experiment with us.

[00:03:30] Twitch is...

[00:03:31] Twitch is...

[00:03:32] They should change their name to fucking Thirsty.

[00:03:33] We signed up and we get thirsty-ass Twitch emails every day that are like, you know what's

[00:03:37] going on on Twitch right now?

[00:03:39] We need you.

[00:03:40] You must be here.

[00:03:41] It's like, calm down, buddy.

[00:03:43] Yeah.

[00:03:44] We're just...

[00:03:44] We're exploring Twitch.

[00:03:47] Jesus.

[00:03:47] Yeah.

[00:03:48] All right.

[00:03:48] Well, so with that said, let's do a quick five-star review and then we'll get into the

[00:03:52] episode.

[00:03:53] So I don't know.

[00:03:54] We got some really good five-star reviews lined up and I wanted to just do one.

[00:03:59] So let's see.

[00:04:00] I'm flipping a coin.

[00:04:02] All right.

[00:04:02] I'm reading You Guys Rock by Willow D'Ares.

[00:04:07] Maybe Diaries?

[00:04:08] I can't see that one.

[00:04:10] Willow, thank you for the five-star review.

[00:04:12] Thank you for writing in.

[00:04:13] The review is this.

[00:04:15] Thanks to the producers, staff, and writers of this podcast.

[00:04:19] Oh my God.

[00:04:19] Ed and I will be sure to thank the staff.

[00:04:21] Hey, hey.

[00:04:22] Thank you.

[00:04:23] Thank you.

[00:04:24] Yeah, there you go.

[00:04:24] We did it.

[00:04:25] Thank you guys.

[00:04:26] We've done it.

[00:04:26] We looked at each other and did it.

[00:04:28] And then Tess will send the text to.

[00:04:30] Thank you to the producers, staff, and writers of this podcast.

[00:04:33] It's been a really hard start to the winter, getting darker earlier.

[00:04:36] It's hard to stay in a good mood.

[00:04:38] Agreed.

[00:04:39] During my commutes, workouts, and when just trying to crack a smile, this podcast has become

[00:04:43] a go-to answer.

[00:04:45] Thanks again.

[00:04:46] Can't wait to get caught up and listen in real time.

[00:04:49] Well, thank you, Willow.

[00:04:50] I'm glad you're enjoying.

[00:04:51] I'm glad we're bringing a smile to your face in these literal dark days.

[00:04:55] We're feeling it too.

[00:04:57] We're...

[00:04:57] I don't know if either of us are officially diagnosed with seasonal depression, but we do

[00:05:02] lock up the sharp objects around this time of year.

[00:05:05] So...

[00:05:05] Year round, baby.

[00:05:06] It's pretty bad.

[00:05:07] Um, but yeah, we're glad you're enjoying the show.

[00:05:10] We are continuing to enjoy the show.

[00:05:12] So thank you for writing in.

[00:05:13] Write in five-star reviews.

[00:05:15] You may be featured on Five Star Review Corner.

[00:05:18] Uh, there's a lot of great reviews we haven't gotten to, but keep an ear out.

[00:05:21] You never know.

[00:05:22] We don't always do them in order.

[00:05:23] So if you left one and we didn't read it, we might loop around back to it.

[00:05:28] Um, and with that, let's get into the show.

[00:05:31] So this episode comes to us courtesy of Ed's personal list of fears.

[00:05:35] It wasn't something I'd considered being afraid of until he'd mentioned it.

[00:05:39] So, Ed, I'm going to turn the floor over to you at the top of the episode here.

[00:05:43] Do you want to explain where the idea for this came from?

[00:05:46] Uh, from sudden death.

[00:05:47] When we did sudden death and then I got in a horrific car accident right after, I thought

[00:05:51] we might be manifesting things into the world.

[00:05:53] So I thought maybe we should do a fear of winning the lottery, uh, which would be great to manifest

[00:05:58] into the world for us.

[00:06:00] But also I, I've just know that it is a real problem.

[00:06:03] Like I've seen enough articles, watched enough stuff, listened to enough podcasts about people

[00:06:08] who won the lottery and their lives went to shit after, I don't know if it's that like

[00:06:13] poor dad, rich dad mentality thing, but it is just like people who don't have a lot of

[00:06:17] experience with money, get a lot of money and all of a sudden shit gets worse.

[00:06:23] Yes.

[00:06:23] I can tell you having researched the topic now that is true more often than not.

[00:06:29] I think a place that we could start though for this episode is talking about if we've ever

[00:06:34] played the lottery.

[00:06:35] Have we won anything in the lottery?

[00:06:37] Ed, have you?

[00:06:38] What big lotto money are you sitting on?

[00:06:40] None.

[00:06:41] I don't play the lottery personally.

[00:06:43] Um, I should, I have plenty of friends who was like, power ball is $10 billion.

[00:06:49] I better get out tonight.

[00:06:49] You know, you'll see people waiting in line at the convenience store.

[00:06:52] I really don't do it.

[00:06:54] I should, I've been broke long enough for us.

[00:06:55] Like anything can't hurt at this point.

[00:06:57] Will you gamble?

[00:06:58] Not really a little.

[00:06:59] I gambled.

[00:07:00] I had a little fun with gambling, but just the tiniest amount.

[00:07:03] Cause I'm like, I can see how dangerous this is for people who, you know, the gamification

[00:07:07] of it, especially in the modern era.

[00:07:10] Uh, I, I think it's kind of dangerous, but no, I'll have like, we'll throw like five

[00:07:14] bucks on like the Mike Tyson fight or something, something fun to make an event a little bit

[00:07:18] more fun.

[00:07:18] But no, I don't really gamble.

[00:07:20] I do like going to the track a lot with friends who do gamble.

[00:07:23] I think it's a really fun day, but again, I'm not really spending money.

[00:07:26] So yeah, I don't really buy like lotto tickets, but every year for Christmas, my mom for like

[00:07:30] our whole lives would buy like scratch off tickets to put in the stockings.

[00:07:34] But it was always so fucking clear that she just bought like all from the same role because

[00:07:39] like one brother would always win.

[00:07:41] Right.

[00:07:42] Cause like just statistically on the roll of tickets that were purchased.

[00:07:45] So there's three brothers and one of them would always end up with some winning tickets

[00:07:50] and it wasn't always me, but no, I never had any kind of like big win.

[00:07:53] I've never, at most it's like a three buck on a scratch off or win a free ticket.

[00:07:58] I'm not even good with like raffles.

[00:08:00] Like if I'm putting in like a raffle ticket at like a car show or at an event or a silent

[00:08:05] auction, I just never win anything.

[00:08:07] I'm not lucky in the world of winning.

[00:08:08] I'm not either.

[00:08:09] I've never even won.

[00:08:11] I've never won a short film contest.

[00:08:13] Well, that's on you.

[00:08:14] Maybe this is why our careers are in the shitter.

[00:08:16] We've never won anything.

[00:08:17] No, I've never won.

[00:08:18] I've never won anything lottery related.

[00:08:21] I've never, I shouldn't say that.

[00:08:22] I also have relatives who have bought scratch offs and stuff over the years.

[00:08:25] And I think I've maybe won like 50 bucks or something.

[00:08:28] Like I've definitely, you know, won a little bit in that sense, but I've never really played

[00:08:33] the lottery.

[00:08:34] I have strong opinions on the lottery though.

[00:08:36] And this is, you know, not helping us.

[00:08:38] The floor is yours.

[00:08:39] This is your podcast.

[00:08:40] The one strong opinion I have on the lottery and I've been, anyone who knows me personally

[00:08:44] has probably heard me talk about this.

[00:08:45] It's like in my top five things, I'll just gripes.

[00:08:48] I'll bring up like things that steam my vegetables.

[00:08:51] And it's, I don't like that as a nation, we're doing like a billion dollar lottery winners.

[00:08:58] If it gets to a billion fucking dollars, it should just be 10, $100 million winners.

[00:09:03] Or people are like, $100 million is nothing anymore.

[00:09:06] Well then fine.

[00:09:07] Make it for $250 million winners.

[00:09:09] I feel like that's enough to start probably generational wealth.

[00:09:11] And that's good.

[00:09:13] People definitely don't need a billion.

[00:09:15] No one needs 300 billion.

[00:09:17] Like that's a whole other fucking thing.

[00:09:19] But in terms of the lottery, I think we should be changing more people's lives than just one

[00:09:24] person's life.

[00:09:25] Like a, yeah, my, my hot take, my big take is that we shouldn't, we should just like make

[00:09:30] more winners.

[00:09:31] What I'm hearing is comrade Ed wants to, wants, wants to legislate the amount of money

[00:09:37] that we can make as individuals in this country.

[00:09:39] And I think for the record, that is a great idea.

[00:09:42] I agree.

[00:09:43] No one needs a billion dollars or $300 billion.

[00:09:46] Let's just say six.

[00:09:48] Let's just call it 6 billion.

[00:09:49] It doesn't make you a fucking card carrying member of the communist party.

[00:09:53] It just, it's a card carrying member of the fucking common sense party.

[00:09:56] Yeah.

[00:09:56] Let's just fucking let people have a life changing amount of money that will make them

[00:10:00] generationally wealthy and call it that.

[00:10:03] Let's just call it, I don't know, $6 billion.

[00:10:05] Okay.

[00:10:05] That seems like more than enough money for anyone to have.

[00:10:08] Here's my pitch.

[00:10:16] Instead, you just get a president bucks and the president.

[00:10:20] It's just so you can collect shit so that you can have more president bucks than the next

[00:10:24] billionaire, but not, you know, it's no, no longer real money.

[00:10:27] The rest of the money goes back into the economy.

[00:10:29] You got like a Chuck E.

[00:10:30] Cheese token basically.

[00:10:31] Yeah.

[00:10:32] And then you can put it up as like, look at the high score I have.

[00:10:34] Yeah.

[00:10:34] It's a high score.

[00:10:35] Yeah.

[00:10:36] You can put your initials into the constitution.

[00:10:38] Yeah.

[00:10:39] That's what we do.

[00:10:40] You put your initials in the constitution.

[00:10:42] You have a lot of money.

[00:10:43] We all recognize it.

[00:10:44] And then the rest of it just goes back into public services for the good of the country.

[00:10:49] Anyway.

[00:10:50] Yeah.

[00:10:50] And that could be anything.

[00:10:51] It could be roads.

[00:10:52] Doesn't have to be literally anything.

[00:10:54] Roads, libraries, schools, whatever.

[00:10:56] Doesn't matter.

[00:10:57] You want lower taxes.

[00:10:58] It's one way to fucking do it.

[00:10:59] Yeah.

[00:10:59] Anyway, there we go.

[00:11:00] But that said, yeah, I don't think that any one person needs a billion dollar fucking lottery win.

[00:11:06] No.

[00:11:07] And then of course someone's going to write in the comments, what about you?

[00:11:09] What if you just got the winning billion dollars?

[00:11:12] Okay, sure.

[00:11:13] But if you told me when I got that, like, oh, the thing about this is you only get 250 million.

[00:11:17] I go, okay.

[00:11:18] Yes.

[00:11:18] And also, I mean, if you won a billion dollars in the lottery, most lotteries in the United States are taxed.

[00:11:25] So you're probably, I mean, you'd get more than 250 million, but.

[00:11:28] What would you do?

[00:11:29] Would you lump sum or would you?

[00:11:30] I would lump sum.

[00:11:31] I don't think I'm going to live past next week anyway with all the shit we discuss.

[00:11:35] Well.

[00:11:36] I'm all about that lump sum.

[00:11:37] It's tough.

[00:11:38] It's tough.

[00:11:38] The lump sum definitely gives you a better shot at.

[00:11:42] Being alive to use it?

[00:11:44] No.

[00:11:44] The lump sum gives you a better shot at being able to live off the interest because you're putting a bigger sum into the bank.

[00:11:51] It's a great point.

[00:11:52] That's how I've always thought of it.

[00:11:53] But I don't know how it breaks down.

[00:11:56] Do you end up getting more if you receive it in yearly chunks?

[00:12:00] I don't know.

[00:12:01] Something tells me you do.

[00:12:02] Something tells me that it's one of those, like, you take it in smaller amounts for longer and you actually end up getting more of the money.

[00:12:10] Okay, so lottery winners have two payout options, a lump sum or an annuity.

[00:12:15] If you take the lump sum, you'll receive the estimated cash value of the jackpot and not the, quote, advertised, jackpot amount.

[00:12:22] If you choose to take the annuity, you will, after like 30 years, receive the full advertised amount.

[00:12:28] So taking the lump sum means you can receive 40 to 50 percent of the jackpot for immediate use or investment.

[00:12:33] so it can be a big difference but who's got the time for that there's also stuff in the rules

[00:12:38] about selling the annuity after that sounds kind of greasy but anyway chris was right

[00:12:44] here's what i would do i would say fuck it i don't care about that like fucking leave it

[00:12:50] give me all the money i will then deposit it somewhere where it collects interest yes and

[00:12:54] then have a person who can only give me a little bit at a time yeah that i mean that's what i would

[00:12:59] do i would i would put it in some kind of irrevocable trust kind of thing where i mean

[00:13:04] depending on how much it was if you're saying literally a billion dollars yes it would be some

[00:13:08] sort of irrevocable trust i would figure out some sort of lifestyle that i could live off the

[00:13:13] interest that i'm making on that money because at that point you know you're making millions of

[00:13:18] dollars a month probably i would say maybe a year in this country what's your interest rate like two

[00:13:25] percent so well no i mean i have uh well i'm not going to say the name if they want to advertise

[00:13:29] with us they're more than welcome to but i i am with a very common bank that is mostly online and

[00:13:36] they give you uh four point it was four point nine i think now it's four point six percent interest

[00:13:41] go even lower over the next six months after that it's only looking high right now because they were

[00:13:46] trying to battle inflation no no a lot of the a lot of the more online banks do offer higher interest

[00:13:51] rates there's a bit of a convenience that you forego like it's hard to deposit cash if that's

[00:13:57] something you do a lot i don't uh so it's not really an issue but yeah no i think i think the

[00:14:03] best interest rate you're getting in a bank at a traditional bank is probably like maybe five percent

[00:14:09] but if you're if you're putting and that's like with a cd or something it's not just going to be

[00:14:13] your normal savings account yeah but if you're putting well my normal savings account's getting four

[00:14:17] point six so a cd might get like five but if you're putting a billion dollars you're not putting that

[00:14:24] into your local chase branch you know like i'm sure i'm putting it under a huge mattress i'm sure

[00:14:30] yeah i'm replacing my entire house with a mattress and i'm putting the money under it well that's the

[00:14:35] beautiful thing about winning the lottery in 2024 is it all it is just zeros and ones and it's also a

[00:14:40] good thing for being rich right now like if i if i would like to if comrade ed from just this episode

[00:14:46] would like to redistribute the wealth yeah uh you can't just go beat someone up and take their money

[00:14:50] anymore it can't just be like give me your money you rich guy it's like well anyone know his password

[00:14:55] this sucks yeah yeah so yeah i guess it would be good you know you put a billion bones just in your

[00:14:59] you know online savings account but well but my point is though that a billion dollars you're probably

[00:15:04] putting that into some sort of you know you're going directly to bear stearns and saying hi i have a

[00:15:09] billion dollars and i need to put in an account they might give you an extra couple points to put a

[00:15:14] billion dollars in with them yeah i wouldn't know i don't know what the vig is there at the end of

[00:15:19] the day but the closest thing i've experienced to any sort of big lottery story growing up in central

[00:15:25] pennsylvania is actually believe it or not movie related because where i grew up in harrisburg and

[00:15:31] hershey is where they shot the john travolta lisa kudrow hit lucky numbers oh boy which was a late

[00:15:38] 90s norah efron movie based on a true story which we'll recount quickly here if you haven't seen the

[00:15:45] movie check it out um but it's based on the 1980 pennsylvania lottery scandal which is colloquially

[00:15:52] known as the triple six fix which was a plot to rig the daily number which is a three-digit game of

[00:15:59] the pennsylvania lottery you had it's a basic lottery game you have like the machines with the ping pong

[00:16:04] balls and i'm blowing around and then they hit the button and the numbers come up it's three numbers

[00:16:09] generated at random and according to wikipedia this plan was masterminded by the announcer of the daily

[00:16:15] number a guy named nick perry who was a news and weather reporter and the host of local sports shows

[00:16:20] like bowling for dollars and championship bowling in 1977 perry became the host of the live nightly

[00:16:27] broadcast of the pennsylvania lottery held in the wtae studios in pittsburgh long story short

[00:16:34] while a host of that broadcast he conspired with a few other people to weigh down all of the balls in

[00:16:42] the three machines in the three air machines except those numbered four and six which meant the drawing

[00:16:50] was almost sure to be a combination of those digits the scheme was actually successful when 666

[00:16:56] which is one of the eight combinations of fours and sixes that the fixers were hoping for was drawn on

[00:17:02] april 24th 1980 netting a three and a half million dollar prize a few days later another one and a half

[00:17:09] million dollar prize was drawn but the authorities noticed uh unusual betting patterns amongst the

[00:17:14] people who knew that these numbers might get drawn uh and they were alerted to the crime and most of the

[00:17:20] fraudulently acquired winnings were never paid out so if you've never seen lucky numbers it is a loosely

[00:17:25] fictionalized version of this story it was panned when it came out as being cynical too dark tonally

[00:17:32] muddy sure and it is because it is written and i didn't know this until i went to go look it up

[00:17:37] by a guy named adam resnick who is a comedy writer from harrisburg pennsylvania who also wrote death to

[00:17:44] smoochie and cabin boy oh my god so those are the two most insane absolutely panned dark weird comedies

[00:17:51] yeah um different time you can get three films with a hundred percent uh audience hated work but what's

[00:17:57] interesting is that i feel like both of those movies have been re-evaluated as kind of like modern

[00:18:01] comedy classics so they like influenced a lot of people at least i don't love cabin boy i get it i get why

[00:18:07] people like it i do love death to smoochie i think the reason that lucky numbers was never

[00:18:14] reconsidered in the pantheon of dark comedy cult classics is that it was directed by romantic

[00:18:20] comedy queen norah efron yeah weirdly it's the only movie that norah efron directed that she didn't

[00:18:27] write that makes sense that's i was thinking about the whole time which also i think explains some of

[00:18:32] its weird tonal issues because she i think i i have no information on this but i suspect she probably was

[00:18:39] offering notes trying to rewrite making kind of a mess of things as she was directing it feeling like

[00:18:45] i don't know if this works i also think it's not nearly as bad as its reputation but i think it

[00:18:50] was very much trying to be fargo it's snowy it's it's impotent criminals it's i mean it's it's

[00:18:58] violent but it's funny it's fargo was a hit fargo was a big hit critically yeah and so i think she was

[00:19:02] definitely trying to kind of do fargo and and miss the mark do you remember it can happen to you

[00:19:08] that's my lottery movie that's my go-to lottery movie no i don't know what could happen nicholas

[00:19:13] cage he's like a cop or whatever and he's like oh he pays for his like his like coffee at the

[00:19:19] diner with like i'll give you half this if it wins yes let me go yes everyone his family's like

[00:19:23] you're gonna give some fucking person a lot of this money yeah you fucking don't even know this person

[00:19:28] ed had no memory of rosie perez playing nicholas cage's wife in this movie but basically did a

[00:19:33] rosie perez impression so it must have been hiding deep in his subconscious this whole time

[00:19:38] the brain is a wild thing you know just the way everybody's family especially on the east coast

[00:19:43] would react to doing something like that yeah and then he's like i gotta do it i made a promise

[00:19:47] that kind of went under the radar oh well it was good i remember it being gubernales good anyway my

[00:19:52] connection to lucky numbers besides the fact that it was written by a guy from harrisburg is that it

[00:19:57] was also shot in harrisburg it was shot in central pennsylvania so it was a big deal for like four

[00:20:02] weeks one of those winters when i was growing up and i think a girl in my sister's grade had her house

[00:20:08] used as an exterior shot at some point but that's the closest i really got to any big crazy lottery

[00:20:13] stories thought it was worth noting but despite our relative ignorance of the lottery it is an

[00:20:19] extremely popular american pastime i don't think you get to a billion dollars you know if it isn't

[00:20:25] i think that's what that happens when like a winner doesn't come up each time then yes going up and

[00:20:30] up but it still means that tons of people are tossing dough at it yes and i have definitely especially when

[00:20:35] i smoked more weed back in the day i have definitely been to untold number of 7-elevens where i just want

[00:20:40] to buy like a fucking pack of rollos yeah or whatever and i have to sit behind some asshole

[00:20:45] who's like being like i want two quick picks and i want this and i want four lucky fours and i'm just

[00:20:49] like shut the fuck up i just want to eat this box of nerds in the parking lot you fucking creep

[00:20:56] you're just taking all this guy standing here generating random numbers on his iphone that he

[00:21:02] needs to bet on do you remember when i play the lottery which is very rare but when someone i'm living

[00:21:08] with will be like let's go to get a ticket i always do one i usually do quick picks because i don't care

[00:21:13] but i always do one with the lost numbers and do you remember when the lost numbers hit no the lost

[00:21:19] number so people who don't know there was a show called loss it was fucking awesome for a lot of it

[00:21:25] and it was definitely water cooler television and there is a series of numbers that it's part of the

[00:21:30] plot device of the show there are these series of numbers that someone has to input all the time

[00:21:36] to like for whatever i don't want to give anything away 300 years later if you're listening 300 years

[00:21:41] later there may not be water coolers or water yeah so it's the same amount of numbers you would play

[00:21:48] in a lottery so a lot of people was a very popular show it was more of a monoculture there wasn't

[00:21:52] streaming yet and so a lot of people played the lost numbers and i myself am one of them but in the

[00:21:58] lost numbers hit somewhere a couple years after the show and it was for a decent amount of money but

[00:22:04] so many people played the lost numbers and everyone got like five bucks oh yeah there are so many people

[00:22:09] who played that number set but yeah that was awesome god we gotta get back there as a society

[00:22:14] well according to a book called for a dollar and a dream state lotteries in modern america by

[00:22:21] historian jonathan d cohen quote one in two american adults buys a lottery ticket at least once a year

[00:22:28] yeah at the extent is at least once a year there's news making lottery nights there's like you know the

[00:22:34] highest number in new jersey lottery history or do you have your tickets it's a billion dollars tonight

[00:22:39] still no winner yeah and here's the thing i think it's because it's a big state california comes up

[00:22:44] a fucking lot there was a time when i was like i played golf down the street in like elta dina from

[00:22:52] some little liquor store where the last like huge number was drawn and i was like the last huge

[00:22:57] winner before this was from like pasadena like right down the street and before that was you know

[00:23:03] fucking fresno or something so it's just like i think it's just a lot of people 40 million people

[00:23:07] playing california so the odds are better here but it just felt like a lot of times it was california

[00:23:12] it is funny it is funny that places where winning numbers were drawn people will go play there because

[00:23:19] they think the luck's gonna like rub off on them when really the odds have to be much lower yeah i

[00:23:25] think that another ticket will come from there i think those people make money i think if you're

[00:23:29] the place that sells the ticket you get a percentage i'm almost certain that's a real thing i think

[00:23:33] that's true anyway one of two american adults buys a lottery ticket at least once a year one in four

[00:23:39] buys at least once a month and the most avid players buy at rates that might shock you some studies

[00:23:46] show that roughly 12 of american adults buy most of the lottery tickets in the country i've been behind

[00:23:52] all 12 of them when i'm stoned just trying to get candy averaging out to between three to four thousand

[00:23:58] dollars wasted per person per year by roughly 30 million people americans spend more on lottery

[00:24:04] tickets every year than on cigarettes coffee or smartphones cohen writes do you remember john f

[00:24:10] kennedy's speech at rice university where he's explaining how we're gonna go to the moon

[00:24:14] one of the things that he was like it's gonna cost a shit ton of money i always think about in that

[00:24:19] speech where he's like yes it's a staggering number but i would have you know that that's still less than

[00:24:23] americans spend on tobacco products each year yeah and i always thought that was like a great way to

[00:24:28] help people understand that so it's shocking to me knowing that that more people spend money on

[00:24:34] fucking lottery yeah well if we want to go back to the moon we could put some of this money towards it

[00:24:39] so it's they spend more every year than on cigarettes coffee smartphones they also spend more on lottery

[00:24:44] tickets annually than on video streaming services concert tickets books and movie tickets combined

[00:24:50] wow and only a handful of people ever win anything but you can say they tax it and yeah that money

[00:24:55] goes towards the state in the country i guess yes which we'll get into in a little bit because

[00:24:59] this love for the lottery is not a new thing according to a recent article in the new yorker from a few

[00:25:04] years ago quote lotteries are an ancient pastime they were common in the roman empire nero was a

[00:25:11] fan of them and are attested to throughout the bible where the casting of lots is used for everything

[00:25:17] from selecting the next king of israel to choosing who will get to keep jesus's garments after the

[00:25:22] crucifixion that's amazing everything's raffle based yeah everything was raffle based i'd never heard

[00:25:27] that story so i dug a little further and apparently that particular casting of lots actually fulfilled

[00:25:32] the messianic prophecy of psalm 22 18 uh some sources say that jesus might have actually watched

[00:25:39] roman soldiers gambling for his clothes from the cross while he was still alive that tracks i mean

[00:25:46] that wouldn't be surprised that just seems like that would be in a movie or tv show for sure yeah

[00:25:50] i mean i guess it was maybe the romans considered it more civilized than just like fighting each other

[00:25:55] at the base of the cross to see who got the cloak but i do find it interesting that anyone would want

[00:26:00] the cloak unless they considered him the son of god even then which they didn't well who the fuck

[00:26:04] wants some criminals clothes like i don't know you guys are doing all right roman empire infamously

[00:26:09] everything jesus had was very much a it was basic it was simple that's what i'm saying like the cup

[00:26:14] in uh last crusade yeah yeah a cup of a carpenter yeah so that's why i cry foul a little bit on this

[00:26:20] story but it's a psalm so psalms are they have their own thing going on yeah who knows i will say it

[00:26:25] makes me wonder why no one apparently uh threw lots for the uh what the fuck where they laid the

[00:26:32] it's got his face on it now the shroud the shroud of turin you think somebody would have been like

[00:26:36] hey that seems valuable yeah like hey a magic spell burned jesus's face into into that fabric over there

[00:26:44] i'll give you six bucks yeah anyway in these early instances uh lottos were deployed as either some kind

[00:26:51] of party game during roman saturnalia's around christmas time we've talked about tickets were

[00:26:56] distributed free to guests some of whom won extravagant prizes or prizes basically yeah quite

[00:27:01] literally what that is or sometimes lots were a means of divining god's will often though lotteries

[00:27:08] were organized to raise money for public works held true in the past holds true now the earliest

[00:27:13] known version of kino dates to the han dynasty and is said to have helped pay for the great wall of

[00:27:19] china two centuries later caesar augustus started a lottery to subsidize repairs for the city of rome

[00:27:26] by the 1400s the practice was common in the low countries of rome which relied on lotteries to build town

[00:27:32] fortifications and later to provide charity for the poor soon enough the trend made its way to england

[00:27:38] where in 1567 queen elizabeth i chartered the nation's first lottery designating its profits for

[00:27:45] quote the reparation of the havens and the strength of the realm e with an e at the end of realm okay so

[00:27:52] they raffled off that e yeah get it out of here to make it for a public work tickets cost 10 shillings

[00:27:58] which was a lot back then in addition to the potential prize value each one served as a get out

[00:28:04] of jail free card literally every lottery participant was entitled to immunity from arrest

[00:28:11] except for certain felonies such as piracy murder and treason oh my god imagine having that in the

[00:28:16] asterisk at the bottom of your get out of jail free card monopoly no i think we should bring that back

[00:28:21] for the lottery fuck the money i mean can you imagine if we had a lottery purge lottery basically

[00:28:25] a purge lottery here's the thing i've noticed in this country you have enough money you can do it

[00:28:30] anyway so win the lottery become rich enough for crime doesn't matter but here's the thing you okay

[00:28:36] so you let's say you do a purge lottery which uh blumhouse if you're listening to this uh we call

[00:28:43] the spinoff by the way the purge colon lottery this is for us yep but what you're doing is instead

[00:28:50] of offering people money from the state all you're doing is kind of subsidizing bank robberies like you

[00:28:57] just go hey if you win this lottery you're immune from prosecution except for murder treason and what

[00:29:03] was a piracy yeah so you're saying hey you know what it's up to you now this is a very american thing

[00:29:09] also piracy do you think they mean pirates or like copy a movie no i well i think back then they meant

[00:29:15] pirate like it's that ad of like you wouldn't steal a candy bar it's like that's the level of which

[00:29:20] it's like yeah just don't murder anyone and don't don't don't make an illegal copy of burlesque no i'm

[00:29:24] saying the state just needs to say i mean how popular would this be in america it would be i mean

[00:29:29] right now you can just go and rob anyone you fucking want i said earlier rich people but you

[00:29:33] can go into a walgreens have you gone to a fucking walgreens recently and tried to get toothpaste well

[00:29:37] okay it's like behind a wall i gotta call someone over yes so yeah crime is easy my point being i don't

[00:29:43] know how we got into that but my point being that instead of the state offering people money in exchange

[00:29:50] for buying lottery tickets yeah you can give them immunity from bank robbery so then they can rob the bank

[00:29:54] and then get whatever they want they can keep it because they're immune if they don't get caught

[00:29:58] what do you mean if they don't get caught what's the point of this fucking card i want to get caught

[00:30:01] and be like oh actually i have a card idiot that's true right diplomatic community right you want you

[00:30:06] to buy but the great thing is is you end up saving money as the state because that idiot who robs

[00:30:11] the bank is going to get what thirty thousand dollars if it's deposits yeah so you're good this is a

[00:30:16] this is a good plan i say we implement it the article notes that the lottery didn't so much spread to

[00:30:22] america from england as it helped spread england into america because the settlement of the continent

[00:30:28] was financed partially through lotteries according to history.com the virginia company of london held

[00:30:35] the lottery in 1612 to fund ships bound for the jamestown colony where we know there later would be

[00:30:42] cannibalism the prize was four thousand crowns which was a good amount of money in those days

[00:30:48] uh it wasn't all that popular this particular lottery wasn't all that popular but the company

[00:30:54] wasn't deterred in 1616 four years later the company sent people on the road to sell tickets

[00:31:00] in what they called instant lotteries outside of the capital in these small scale games people could

[00:31:06] find out if they won a prize immediately after buying a ticket similar to a scratch off lottery today

[00:31:12] interesting or like a twist off a cap of coke and see if you want another yeah and these were huge

[00:31:18] successes they brought in an estimated 29 000 pounds over the next four years or 8 million pounds today

[00:31:25] as more colonies settled in the americas they also funded their settlements with lottery money

[00:31:30] lotteries paid for public buildings roads and canals influential figures like george washington

[00:31:36] benjamin franklin and john hancock sponsored lotteries for specific projects and interestingly

[00:31:42] though i i thought this was great despite widespread adoption of lotteries there were still strong

[00:31:48] protestant resistance to gambling so in the massachusetts bay colony for instance dice and

[00:31:55] playing cards were forbidden even in people's private homes it was outlawed but that didn't stop

[00:32:01] massachusetts from holding their first lottery in 1745 yeah who's gonna go to the first thanksgiving

[00:32:06] you had to you had to put in for a lottery yeah uh those seats were pricey they were and it sucks

[00:32:13] as everyone had these fucked up janky dice they had to make it like whittle out of wood what are you

[00:32:18] getting out there just some firewood don't worry about it you're not making dice again are you the

[00:32:22] shittiest dice the reason for this contradiction in morality is that early america was short on revenue

[00:32:29] and long on the need for public work so since early american politics and really modern american

[00:32:35] politics have defined themselves by their aversion to taxes yeah no taxation without representation but

[00:32:40] it's like well this isn't taxation this is a you might win a sports car yeah i mean if they had

[00:32:46] cars back then it's a nice loophole it's a nice workaround that's true uh the lottery became an

[00:32:51] appealing alternative for raising money which was used for funding for everything from civil defense

[00:32:56] to the construction of churches now the churches don't even let you win anything they're just like

[00:33:00] you're gonna put into this lottery basket but what do i get i don't know not eternal damnation

[00:33:05] well but now i mean churches do now i mean bingo is a big church thing 100 i'm just saying that they

[00:33:11] have a collection basket that you get nothing right right you just put the money in and you get good

[00:33:16] feelings you get good feelings i think they figured it out it's like we actually don't even have to

[00:33:20] give them anything everyone else is doing it wrong well you're gonna give out an xbox i don't know

[00:33:24] i don't know you know we were raised catholic so i don't know what other churches are like but

[00:33:28] catholics pass around the collection plate and i think for them it's a fully guilt-based economy

[00:33:32] yes they make you put the money in front of everybody else and if you don't to this day

[00:33:37] if i go to like christmas eve mass with my mom when they pass the basket around i don't put money in

[00:33:42] i'm like oh god well that's why i'm i'm fucking ricky envelope and that you know like you can get the

[00:33:48] envelope yeah they get like the church provided envelopes right so i'm always like whatever's in

[00:33:52] this envelope's in this envelope yeah but you want that envelope to be thick you can put like

[00:33:56] kleenex and stuff in there too that's true that's a tip for anyone listening if you don't want to look

[00:34:00] at your cheapskate at your church christmas party you put one dollar in there and then put some

[00:34:05] stuff it like i'm not saying it's the fastest way to get to heaven this show is sponsored by better

[00:34:12] help as we pull up on the holiday season we've all got a lot on our minds and it can be tough to

[00:34:18] remember to take a moment and feel grateful for the good things in our lives one of the things i've

[00:34:22] been really grateful for this year is this podcast and all of you listening and especially ed

[00:34:28] he keeps shit moving behind the scenes and is the reason the show sounds so good week in and week

[00:34:32] out ed who are you thankful for and you don't have to say me but i will chris yeah without chris's

[00:34:39] research and hard work on these scripts i'd have no ahs and ums to meticulously cut out of his

[00:34:43] performance every episode and i'm of course thankful to our fans especially our producers

[00:34:48] each of which i'd like to list off by name right now but that's the kind of codependent urges i'm

[00:34:52] trying to be better about not giving into so whoever you're thankful for there is one other

[00:34:57] person we never thank enough ourselves we just thank ourselves no no no we thanked each other

[00:35:04] oh okay copy that but yeah it is hard to remember that we're only human we're all trying our best

[00:35:09] to make sense of everything in this god forsaken world and and that isn't easy so here's a reminder

[00:35:13] to send some thanks to people in your life including yourself and not only in november one way to show

[00:35:18] yourself a little thanks year round is by starting therapy i've talked about therapy on the show before

[00:35:23] but it's worth mentioning again therapy really helped pull me out of some very dark places

[00:35:29] i've never had much in the way of self-esteem or self-worth i can't even listen to my fucking voice

[00:35:33] on this show it's true he doesn't listen to a single episode most interactions with people make me

[00:35:38] extremely nervous and there are lots of days i don't know why i should even get out of bed in the

[00:35:42] morning yeah same therapy has helped me process those thoughts and feelings in a way that is healthy

[00:35:47] and safe the only regret i have is that i never started it sooner so if you're thinking of starting

[00:35:53] therapy and you want to be able to listen to your own voice on your podcast then give better help a try

[00:35:58] it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule all you got

[00:36:03] to do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch

[00:36:07] therapists at any time for no additional charge this holiday season let the gratitude flow with better

[00:36:12] help visit betterhelp.com slash sat which is s-a-t-t today to get 10 off your first month

[00:36:18] that's better help h-e-l-p dot com slash sat which again is s-a-t-t which again stands for scared all the

[00:36:27] time it's our initials the holidays are right around the corner and whether you're hosting your family

[00:36:31] for thanksgiving or frogging it as strangers for christmas you might have some really understandable

[00:36:36] fears about what to cook for everybody even if you're just bringing something to a potluck it can be like

[00:36:40] oh god what can i put together that people are gonna like and then the store doesn't have the

[00:36:44] ingredients and then you start to panic but with hello fresh you don't have to worry about that type

[00:36:48] of shit all right they make meal time nearly hassle-free with delicious home delivered chef

[00:36:53] crafted recipes that come together quickly and honestly less expensive than takeout yeah it's

[00:36:57] been game changing for me i like to cook but i fall back on the same 10 or 15 recipes that i know by

[00:37:03] heart and it gets a little boring so it's awesome to have hello fresh there to send me everything from

[00:37:08] spicy turkey bowls to caprese salads to sizzling hoisin shrimp and more they take all the time

[00:37:14] i usually spend planning and running to the store and give it back to me so that i can turn around and

[00:37:19] give it back to you through the podcast america's number one meal kit is literally bringing you more

[00:37:24] of america's number one fear-based podcast it's true and it's been really great having this kind of

[00:37:29] mise-en-place ingredients ready to go beforehand when it's time to cook so i can jump straight from an edit

[00:37:34] into ripping open a bag of measured-out ingredients and get right to work it's like having a sous chef but you never

[00:37:38] have to talk to now if i can only find an assistant editor i don't have to talk to that would be great

[00:37:42] also the cooling packs or whatever you call them inside the shipping boxes are pretty legit because

[00:37:45] when i'm too busy working on an episode to notice that one's been thrown into my bushes by my arch

[00:37:49] nemesis the shot put fucking athlete who throws crap over the fence into my yard is the meals are

[00:37:54] actually very crisp and cool when i find them out there well i don't know if hello fresh market sells

[00:37:58] cooling packs but you can check out the hello fresh market for over 100 additional add-on items like

[00:38:04] desserts quick breakfast snacks and a lot more this month they even have thanksgiving items to help you

[00:38:10] wow a crowd with minimal effort on your part not that anyone needs to know that plus hello fresh offers

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[00:38:49] so fast forward 200 something years america 1970s after the vietnam war as american prosperity started

[00:38:58] to wane many state budgets they were becoming increasingly difficult to balance without doing one of two things

[00:39:05] raising taxes or cutting services which were both pretty unpopular opinions no one really ever wants

[00:39:12] either so for politicians looking for a way out of this conundrum the lottery was sort of a perfect

[00:39:17] solution it provided a way to maintain existing services without hiking taxes and then you know you

[00:39:23] keep your job you wouldn't get punished the polls for these politicians lotteries were basically

[00:39:29] budgetary miracles they were the chance for states to make revenue appear seemingly out of thin air

[00:39:34] so for instance in new jersey which had no sales tax no income tax and no appetite for instituting

[00:39:41] either legislators claimed that a lottery would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars relieving

[00:39:47] them of the need to ever again contemplate taxation and yeah i can't drive through that fucking state

[00:39:52] without having someone else pump my gas well and this was i don't know i don't know does new jersey

[00:39:57] have sales or income tax now i think they have both and i can't bump my own gas that place really fell

[00:40:04] apart yeah they have a sales tax they have a 6.625 sales tax not as bad as california but that's still

[00:40:11] pretty and their income tax is 1.4 to 10.75 so yeah they've given up on all those strong ideas they

[00:40:18] had back then once they got the taste of the lottery they were like we need money yeah yeah yeah so

[00:40:23] the problem standing in the way of the lottery though was that americans were still relatively

[00:40:28] religious and still had objections to legalizing gambling now there were lots of people arguing on

[00:40:34] both sides of this some argued that since people would gamble anyway the state might as well have

[00:40:39] a legalized way to collect profits many white voters actually supported legalization of lotteries

[00:40:46] because they thought the state-run gambling industry would primarily this is one of the most racist

[00:40:52] things i've ever said on the show and i will reiterate this is not my perspective this was

[00:40:56] the 1970s new jersey voters perspective um they thought state-run gambling would primarily attract

[00:41:03] black players who would then foot the bill for services that white voters didn't want to pay for

[00:41:09] because if you legalize gambling they thought black people would take advantage of that and then thus

[00:41:15] their gambling money would pay for all the stuff that they didn't want to pay for that the whites didn't

[00:41:20] want to pay for that the whites didn't want to pay for so they were for i assume they mean welfare yes

[00:41:24] they were for it i thought so i'm sorry i was confused people can't see his face here so i made

[00:41:30] a confusing face you made a confusing face so i thought you were saying that they didn't want blacks to play

[00:41:34] the lottery and then pay for everything and then be like see that park bench only we could use it

[00:41:38] because we paid for it with the lottery and i'm like equally racist but um but not as but not as nefarious

[00:41:44] no no fully nefarious white people fully went hey you know what let's legalize gambling it will attract

[00:41:50] black players yes and then we will benefit from their sins essentially yeah yeah greasy um greasy as fuck

[00:41:58] super greasy and you know because they were like white taxpayers when they were presented with hey should

[00:42:04] we pay for better public schools in urban areas they were like fuck no but this was a way to get

[00:42:09] around that so meanwhile many african-american voters supported legalization because they believe

[00:42:15] that it would ease their friction with the police who for a long time it was the police run lottery no

[00:42:21] but numbers games any kind of gambling that was that is something that i'm surprised you haven't brought

[00:42:25] up yet that like the mafia numbers games and gang numbers game yes well i'm sure the mafia was against

[00:42:31] legalizing gambling for those reasons but uh in this particular instance african-american voters felt

[00:42:36] like well if we legalize certain aspects of gambling that'll give the cops fewer reasons to crack down

[00:42:42] on us yeah to come knock knock on the door and be like what are you doing in here you guys playing

[00:42:46] the numbers yeah so now opponents to easing gambling laws were split along religious lines i thought this was

[00:42:54] really interesting devout protestants regarded government sanctioned lotteries as morally unconscionable

[00:43:01] one methodist minister and anti-lottery activist at the time imagine that an anti-lottery activist i mean

[00:43:08] it's been a couple like one at the beginning of this fucking episode that's true but i feel like it's been a couple

[00:43:13] decades since we've heard that term but this minister in his uh position as an anti-lottery activist declared

[00:43:20] quote there is more agreement among protestant groups on the adverse effect of gambling than on

[00:43:26] any other social issue including the issues of abortion alcohol and homosexuality what so yeah he felt

[00:43:34] that such adverse effects of gambling included fostering gambling addiction sapping income from

[00:43:39] the poor undermining basic civic and moral ideas by championing a route to prosperity that quote did not

[00:43:46] involve merit or hard work i mean i'm not against the first three or four of these no but i would yeah i mean

[00:43:53] it's i mean it is addicting it is fostering the idea of something for nothing and it will likely adversely

[00:44:00] affect people of lower income yes we'll play it more yes and he felt or he or she i'm not sure if this was a

[00:44:07] male or female minister felt that encouraging state governments to maximize profits would come at the cost of even

[00:44:13] uh the expense of their most vulnerable citizens so maximizing profit comes at the expense of anyone

[00:44:20] more vulnerable than yeah people who are maximizing those profits so that makes sense i don't see it as

[00:44:24] much in this exact scenario that like fitting one for one sure more than like oh i can't get into that

[00:44:29] well start calling me comrade catholics on the other hand were overwhelmingly pro lottery they played it

[00:44:37] in huge numbers these are people who have eight nine ten twelve kids yes they were playing the lottery

[00:44:43] with which one of these are gonna fucking live through this so yeah everything they were doing

[00:44:46] was you know lottery based generally catholics were considered to reliably flock to all kinds of

[00:44:52] gambling games now i don't i don't want to put this on any sort of ethnicities italians

[00:44:59] but we said to just say that rome started the whole gambling thing or was like big into it

[00:45:03] one statistic that blew my mind is that in 1978 bingo games hosted by ohio catholic high schools

[00:45:10] took in more money than the state's entire lottery organization oh my god dude so just catholics

[00:45:17] playing bingo and it's a and i don't know what what year was that you think that was 78 1978 at this

[00:45:23] point there must have been laws that it's non-taxable right because the religious institution

[00:45:28] probably yeah so that's got to piss some people off they're bringing in more money than the state

[00:45:32] lottery and there's no way the state can take any of that money bingo games yeah they're fucking

[00:45:37] degenerates the ohio catholics man they had a they had a good thing going there they did well so in

[00:45:42] 1964 new hampshire approved the first state-run lottery of the modern era so it wasn't uh new

[00:45:48] hampshire that's a place that is still a real one like they still don't have sales tax right well

[00:45:52] and i so it's no surprise i don't think that they were the ones who went we need to get money from

[00:45:57] somewhere we're doing no sales tax no income tax no like we ain't taking nothing live free or die

[00:46:02] yeah so they they approved the first state-run lottery in the present day which is interesting

[00:46:08] like i as a person who doesn't think much about the lottery it's always existed since we were born

[00:46:14] and so i never realized that it started in the 60s really in the united states yeah well there's

[00:46:19] another lottery in the 60s called the draft and that was not as good yeah people were really used to

[00:46:25] their number coming up so to speak yeah they weren't bumped about it yeah they're like how do we

[00:46:29] change the perspective on on numbers in this country 13 states followed in as many years all

[00:46:35] of them in the northeast in the rust belt by the early 80s with reagan in the white house federal

[00:46:40] money flowing into state coffers declined and more states started looking around for solutions to their

[00:46:45] budgetary crises and they bet on the lottery over and over again guess the lottery is coming back

[00:46:50] there's a whole interesting history in the article about and and i'm not going to go into it because

[00:46:56] it takes us a little too far off topic and it's complicated math stuff but it's super interesting

[00:47:01] this one company called scientific games incorporated that's the most that if that

[00:47:06] sounds like a mafia front yes they invented the scratch-off and through a whole host of like funky

[00:47:13] math and a lot of lobbying wait they invented the idea of it or they physically invented i don't know

[00:47:18] if they invented the idea of it but they invented what we think of as the modern scratch-off card

[00:47:22] that goes i would love to see how they were like listen i'm working on this thing it's unbelievable

[00:47:27] right here here she's wearing her clothes but if you scratch your coin on the clothes yeah oh look at

[00:47:32] that her clothes are gone it was like they were working for like a spencer's gifts place who was

[00:47:37] someone was like realized there's a better way to use this they invented the scratch-off for numbers

[00:47:41] instead of titties is what i think well no i'm just saying i do like the idea of the the mechanics of

[00:47:48] a scratch-off being for something entirely different is funny to me and then they realize that this is

[00:47:52] actually better for gambling well and what they also realized was that until this point lotto's

[00:47:57] were just number drawings but the scratch-off what they realized was so addictive you can gamify it

[00:48:02] well it gamifies it yes you participate in it and that's why i feel not great about modern draft kings

[00:48:09] style we were just talking about this before we started recording sports gambling yeah i like sports

[00:48:14] gambling but like the the gamification of sports gambling i think is a little gross towards young

[00:48:19] people right yes and that's exactly what these scratch-offs did it made everybody it made you feel

[00:48:24] like you were participating it was more of a game it was it was less gambling and and honestly i mean

[00:48:30] when i was a kid and i would get like a scratch-off at christmas or easter or something

[00:48:36] catholics um you know it was i never even thought of it as gambling it was sort of like a it was fun

[00:48:41] it was a fun little game these again i talked about earlier these were in children's stockings

[00:48:46] yes yeah exactly yeah eight-year-olds were the people who who definitely on their own if walked

[00:48:52] into a quickie mart couldn't buy these things on their own i think get to be 18 yes but there they

[00:48:57] are opening them up remember you had the stocking for guns the stockings for there was the stocking

[00:49:01] with tobacco pipes it was like a the fucking foot clan yeah it showed up and just like gave you

[00:49:06] every vice in one sock yeah yeah that's what it was like anyway scientific games not only invented

[00:49:12] the scratch-off they had this whole clever system i won't go into the whole thing but they essentially

[00:49:16] lobbied to make the laws around this so onerous for people to essentially like apply and get uh

[00:49:25] certified as like a scratch-off uh retailer and all this stuff that they made it impossible for anyone

[00:49:31] else to compete they basically made it so that it was so expensive for another company to become a

[00:49:37] scratch-off lotto company that they became like the one and only and by and by 1982 the company

[00:49:43] printed its five billionth ticket and was producing a million more every hour wow just the brazilian

[00:49:51] rainforest and trees just burned you think ai is bad for the environment yeah scientific games killed

[00:49:57] off probably just as many uh toucans to produce fucking lotto tickets i need a million more of these on

[00:50:04] my desk by lunch yeah so by that point by the mid-80s the lottery had firmly planted itself in american

[00:50:10] life and maybe that shouldn't be a surprise because one of the few things that infamous enemies

[00:50:15] alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson agreed on was that lotteries found success in the colonies

[00:50:22] because citizens would quote prefer a small chance of winning a great deal to a great chance of winning

[00:50:28] a little it's true and people are still that way it's basic psychology yeah they would always take

[00:50:33] and they'll always take the lump sum if it's less over the uh long term getting more getting a little

[00:50:41] bit every year i bet now would you say it that way it's the other way around in the sense that i

[00:50:46] didn't think about it when you said it earlier i didn't think about it this way but you were like

[00:50:49] oh if i took the lump sum i'd put it into my account and i'd make money on it someone's holding on to

[00:50:53] that money while you're getting a small amount every month and it's giving them fucking interest

[00:50:56] that's true that's a fucking interest-free loan you're giving somebody with your billion dollars

[00:51:00] that's true that's how i feel about venmo in some extent definitely stock exchange places where

[00:51:06] it's like wait how is venmo free it's like well if you have five hundred dollars in your venmo account

[00:51:11] you don't actually that five hundred dollars is an account they have with a billion dollars in it

[00:51:15] making interest on all the money all of our venmo money sitting in there what an insane business

[00:51:20] model that all they had to do was convince a lot of people to give them money to sit on and make

[00:51:24] interest off of and then they just send that money back and forth to everybody else yeah when you need

[00:51:28] to pay your friend eight bucks for ordering twinkies or whatever yeah they'll give you the eight dollars

[00:51:32] to send them realistically it's going back to their venmo account which is then going to sit in their

[00:51:37] fucking bank account still so yeah it's kind of like i love getting a tax return at the end of the year

[00:51:41] you know in years that i get it but it's also like that's just an interest-free loan i gave the

[00:51:46] government all year yeah for screenwriters like ed and i there's a lot of different weird processes to fill

[00:51:51] out your taxes it's not super simple and uh i don't even know if i should say this on record but

[00:51:57] i was told once error audio file corrupt or missing i'm not saying i've never done this but

[00:52:03] error audio file corrupt or missing you're giving the government probably best to ignore these alerts

[00:52:10] just put in a sound effect or something and move on with the edit really that's what you chose

[00:52:17] you're out of control be better but some people who win the lottery actually lose everything and

[00:52:27] that's what we're really here to talk about today there is one very famous story about a guy named

[00:52:32] william post who we are not going to cover because the dollop already did that and you can go listen

[00:52:39] to the dollop if you want to hear the story of william post but there are an endless amount of these

[00:52:44] stories many of them are pretty similar person wins money person starts partying person doesn't

[00:52:50] stop partying person loses everything but in doing my research i was also kind of heartened by how many

[00:52:56] people basically gave money away and just got in trouble buying stuff for everyone they know from cars

[00:53:02] to houses to vacations paying for college i feel like that's that would be me yes i for sure know

[00:53:08] like if i got there was like a number if i got 100 million or more yeah i'm peeling a few of those

[00:53:12] million off i don't give a shit i'm handing out shit all you guys are getting button of the month

[00:53:16] club for free for free and i'm actually gonna hire someone to make the buttons a generous spirit can

[00:53:22] actually be really difficult for a lottery winner because you you get the illusion of having infinite

[00:53:27] money that you can just give to people i mean i think i probably would do the same thing i'd be

[00:53:32] like oh yeah yeah i'm paying for every dinner i'm paying for every vacation i'm paying for everything

[00:53:37] do you have any friends especially in our business who like do have a lot of money yeah i have a few

[00:53:42] i got some that are cheap as fuck who i won't name right now and i won't name the good ones either

[00:53:47] just to not be but i got one or two buds who they're not even worth like they're worth millions

[00:53:52] but not high double digits millions and they are always just like 25 friends are out right now i'm

[00:53:58] paying for it i'm paying for it i'm paying for it and that's great but i got friends who are worth

[00:54:02] not friends of co-workers who are worth 200 300 million and they don't pay for shit so it is weird but

[00:54:08] yeah the generous spirit must be tough but i've also never seen them run out of money yet so i'll

[00:54:12] name a dickhead won't say what he's famous from but if you know you know he's worth a lot of money

[00:54:19] and he once told me that the way you keep your money is by not spending it yeah definitely people i know

[00:54:24] who he's hired didn't get paid well so no so that happens with rich people like a lot of rich people

[00:54:29] have that mentality i think if you're like halfway decent with money management or halfway decent with

[00:54:34] budgeting you should be able to pay for friends and that kind of stuff and there is that thing too

[00:54:39] where you're like earlier i had said in this episode if i kept it in i'm not sure or not but if i did

[00:54:43] keep it in earlier i said in this episode i was like you know what i'll give my money to someone who

[00:54:47] just gives me a little bit at a time no different than getting it in uh not the lump sum but you get

[00:54:52] the lump sum all front but when i'm thinking back on that how many stories do we have of like billy

[00:54:56] joel's bruce springsteins people where it's like their business partner took it all they didn't even

[00:55:01] realize it yeah well because they weren't good with money and they got taken advantage of they

[00:55:05] just trusted that yeah it would be it would be well with that in mind the idea that a lot of these

[00:55:11] stories are pretty similar i tried to find a couple of lottery tragedies that broke the norm in one way

[00:55:16] or another and we're gonna start with a guy whose name became legendary after he won the lottery in

[00:55:22] west virginia the name jack whitaker his story makes me think he sold his soul to the devil on some dark

[00:55:29] back road one night because this motherfucker was already worth 17 million dollars from his west

[00:55:35] virginia-based construction business when he won a record-setting powerball on the night of christmas

[00:55:41] 2002 rather than breaking up the 315 million dollars into dozens of payments he took 113 million

[00:55:49] dollars after taxes in a single lump sum that's a ton of taxes taken out it was like 60 i mean i assume

[00:55:56] state federal sure who knows what else but yeah a guy who's already worth 17 million dollars winning

[00:56:03] 350 million dollars on christmas night feels like not even real yeah that's crazy you know it's like

[00:56:10] just the music from fucking the end of uh home alone and it's just like a man holding a ticket

[00:56:16] as like out of focus the the number lady being drawing the numbers is like and it's like person on the

[00:56:22] other end of the phone is like you still there jack you still there whatever yeah well according

[00:56:26] to the new york post which is honestly the best source for a lot of these lottery craziness stories

[00:56:32] uh whitaker vowed that the prize would not change him but believe it or not a week later he showed up

[00:56:40] at a strip club called the pink pony which i think might be literally the pink pony club from

[00:56:46] the chapel rone song oh i don't know i don't even know who chap rone is she's a pop star i'm not

[00:56:51] super familiar with her music my writing partner is and she has a song called pink pony club oh it

[00:56:57] might be i think it might literally where's she from somewhere in the south i think is that where

[00:57:01] this is this is west virginia oh there you go although i don't know i mean pink pony might not

[00:57:05] be that weird of a name for a strip club but anyway jack whitaker showed up at the pink pony

[00:57:10] a week after he won this and slammed fifty thousand dollars down in cash but that might not be him

[00:57:16] changing he might have always been that guy but now he has more money that was my first thought

[00:57:21] that doesn't seem like something that you do for the first time when you make that money no when he

[00:57:26] when he walked up they were like what's up jack like everyone knew him there already and now he's

[00:57:31] five thousand down when he was only a 17 millionaire from his construction company also a bunch of

[00:57:38] elements of this sniff a bit of dixie mafia i don't i'm not saying this guy was a member of the dixie

[00:57:45] mafia but it seems like he had a certain level of comfort and braggadocio around criminal elements

[00:57:53] so i don't know that this guy was uh completely on the on the straight and narrow i also ed i meant to

[00:57:59] put this this picture is in the show notes but i want to show you a picture of jack whitaker because

[00:58:04] this guy is a man for all time oh my god he looks he kind of looks like jim ross from wwe if you

[00:58:11] remember jim ross the announcer sure he there's a lot of comparisons i can make he seems like either

[00:58:17] the best time or the worst time to hang out with like he seems like he can bring the good times

[00:58:21] or he can ruin everyone's he's a good old boy with a giant black 10 gallon cowboy hat a bright red tie

[00:58:29] a black button-up shirt uh jack whitaker is out here having fun and of course acting like a crazy person

[00:58:36] throwing this much money around shed an unwanted spotlight on the pink pony club too

[00:58:41] quote my worst nightmare was waking up in the morning and reading in the paper that jack whitaker

[00:58:46] got rolled at the pink pony the bar's manager told the washington post i said please put that money

[00:58:53] away oh meaning like i don't need to be i don't need you getting shot over this or people robbing you

[00:58:58] or yeah i mean i don't know exactly what his definition of rolled is but just anybody you know

[00:59:03] locally finding out that there's all this a lot of money flying around at the pink pony club i'm sure is

[00:59:09] not great for the club that probably doesn't really want a ton of people looking their direction

[00:59:15] uh but that didn't stop whitaker he became more brazen on another visit to the club months later he

[00:59:21] bragged about having 545 000 stashed in his lincoln out in the parking lot two employees allegedly slipped

[00:59:30] him a mickey broke into the vehicle and stole the cash they did get charged but never indicted

[00:59:36] although whitaker also picked up a bit of good luck when the cash was found near a dumpster still

[00:59:42] in the briefcase which he's an idiot yes he's like that pictures you show me it's like i said he's

[00:59:48] either the most fun to be around or an absolute fucking nightmare to be around he's just like a big

[00:59:52] stupid blowhard he's a big stupid blowhard but again this is where i think dixie mafia like why

[00:59:58] steal 545 000 out of someone's car and then just decide to leave it untouched near a dumpster

[01:00:04] feels very like oops we didn't realize who this guy was also let's not that's not completely pass

[01:00:10] over the fact that two employees of your business just had fucking mickeys to be handed out to begin

[01:00:16] with that's true yeah it was like hey it wasn't like hey they heard about it and then went and found

[01:00:20] mickeys they were like hey so we got these fucking mickey fins for i guess this predominantly for this

[01:00:28] kind of situation female club we work at it's really all these uh knockout drugs we have are for

[01:00:34] stealing money from fat rich old white guys and has nothing to do with the women that patronize the

[01:00:39] joint so one patron the women that work well that's the women that work the joint sure but in any case

[01:00:44] uh five months later two hundred thousand dollars was taken from whitaker's car in that parking lot

[01:00:50] and then flash forward to 2018 when another hundred thousand dollars was heisted out of his automobile

[01:00:57] while it was parked in front of his house 2018 yeah for some reason i thought this was that photo

[01:01:02] made it look like this was 1988 well no this guy's been this guy was around for a while just throwing

[01:01:08] money around oh it seems like he kept regularly hundreds of thousands of dollars in his car he seems

[01:01:14] that was his his whole move was just keeping money in his car yeah around the county i have a

[01:01:19] detachable faceplate for my fucking 80 radio that i like take off when i leave my piece of just in

[01:01:25] case yeah i'm not leaving 200 000 in the back of well you also don't have 17 million plus uh what

[01:01:31] how much did you make 113 million after taxes so i don't i would definitely have a better car if i did

[01:01:37] around the county whitaker started to become known for his newly caddish ways according to the

[01:01:43] washington post while boozing it up at a local bar he loudly offered one female bartender money

[01:01:49] for sex shocking he later offered ten thousand dollars to another bartender if she would pose

[01:01:57] for him in her underwear both women turned him down i don't know it seems i would do it for ten

[01:02:02] thousand dollars for him i know i'd say did you bring the underwear and where would we like to set

[01:02:06] this up i'd be fucking george costanza on that couch real fast meanwhile things were not going well

[01:02:12] at home in 2004 a friend of his teenage granddaughter brandy was found lifeless from a drug overdose in

[01:02:20] whitaker's house buddy that's not great for you dude later that year brandy described in this article

[01:02:26] only as the apple of whitaker's eye this is his granddaughter his granddaughter not the one found

[01:02:32] dead okay his granddaughter was the apple of his eye she was discovered dead her body wrapped in a

[01:02:37] plastic tarp behind a derelict van from undisclosed causes okay that's too too many to not have him be

[01:02:45] a suspect yeah like right also look at this man's general attitude it's higher in body type this man's

[01:02:51] never eaten a fucking apple an apple is a thing to throw away that's why these women are in a goddamn

[01:02:56] garbage can according to one uh person who gave a quote for this article they said he gave a crazy

[01:03:03] stipend to his 17 year old granddaughter and that attracted some bad characters nothing good came of

[01:03:09] it she apparently was receiving two thousand dollars a week and was gifted four cars by her grandfather

[01:03:15] damn which also sounds a little bit like i'm doing really skeezy things with my granddaughter and here's

[01:03:22] two thousand dollars a week and four cars to not talk about it i don't know we don't want to put that

[01:03:27] on his name i don't know no i just i just don't know the whole thing sounds bad two teenage girls dead

[01:03:34] in his vicinity in two years or a year yeah not awesome not not great whitaker loved gambling and

[01:03:43] that too proved disastrous when caesar's atlantic city sued him for bouncing a one and a half million

[01:03:49] dollar check that's on caesar's you're taking checks come on written to cover his losses get the

[01:03:54] fuck out of here it's got to be a cashier's check i i don't know the details of the check but it did

[01:03:58] not clear following another casino issue he settled with a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting

[01:04:05] her at the tri-state racetrack and gaming center in charleston west virginia then in 2007 whitaker said

[01:04:11] he could not pay uh the lawsuit because he was broke he assisted according to cbs news that quote a team of

[01:04:18] crooks maybe the same team of crooks who brought down nixon i don't know cashed

[01:04:23] fraudulent checks and quote got all my money damn he and the bank where it supposedly happened

[01:04:30] settled their differences later that year things seemed to quiet down for whitaker for a few years

[01:04:35] until his home burned down in 2016 all the stories are true said bob rufus a retired forensic

[01:04:42] accountant who worked with whitaker during a contentious divorce from his wife jewel oh boy quote

[01:04:47] jack whitaker was a complete wacko bob rufus told the post i remember him being in a heated dispute with

[01:04:53] jewel's lawyer who said to jack you confused your iq with the amount of your lottery winnings

[01:04:58] at that rufus remembered jack was ready to start throwing punches he was very volatile what happened

[01:05:04] to jack would be humiliating to a normal person but he felt like he was above it all as a result of his

[01:05:09] financial worth i think his reflection would be that he was a victim of the lottery it certainly

[01:05:14] wrecked his life and jack whitaker died kind of shockingly of natural causes

[01:05:22] um uh in june 2020 wow wow yeah right after starting covet i mean based on the photo we've seen of jack

[01:05:32] whitaker covet might have taken him out for sure um for i mean yeah that's that's june of 2020 large

[01:05:38] man that physique mouth wide open yeah breathing heavily licking guard rails licking stripper poles

[01:05:44] having to constantly go suck up the fumes of his car when he goes to his like trunk atm that he kept

[01:05:49] apparently but whitaker's story is a walk in the park compared to the tale of lottery winner with the

[01:05:55] name get this abraham shakespeare that is a made-up name and his life i did not see nearly enough

[01:06:03] headline puns about this is a shakespearean level tragedy oh good you know how abraham lincoln freed

[01:06:09] the slaves sounds like this guy's gonna free all the money from his account he freed a lot of money

[01:06:15] from his account i think he also freed a couple of demons personal demons that cost him dearly in fact

[01:06:21] when asked by 2020 about what led to abraham shakespeare's downfall a friend said quote his illiteracy

[01:06:28] and his kind heart oh that's a dangerous combination dangerous combination dangerous so the life of abraham

[01:06:37] shakespeare right there just that sentence alone could be like a series of short like a novella

[01:06:42] yeah yeah short stories the coen brothers are already on this man's story according to the tampa bay times

[01:06:49] on november 15th 2006 abraham shakespeare was 41 years old had five dollars in his wallet and was making

[01:06:57] eight bucks an hour he had no car no driver's license no credit card he had grown up in lake

[01:07:03] wales florida and spent time in homes for juvenile delinquents he could read and write but as this

[01:07:09] friend previously mentioned not much he also had a long criminal record mostly for loitering he drove

[01:07:16] when he wasn't allowed to drive he stole he hit people and he later didn't pay for the children he

[01:07:21] fathered is the heart of gold he was saying illiterate and a heart of gold yes a liter his illiteracy and

[01:07:27] his kind heart were his downfall it sounds like he lied in his resume about one of the two things

[01:07:32] he went to prison twice from uh do you think it was from like five counts of kindness he was found

[01:07:38] guilty on all that kindness yeah five counts of kindness and he's sentenced to to 25 years and a

[01:07:44] hug um no i think so after he got out in 1995 he lived with his mother and then he worked as a garbage

[01:07:51] man he unloaded trucks he washed dishes he did day labor and that's what he was doing on a fateful day

[01:07:57] november 2006 now we were just joking about you know this guy's life story look there is an actual

[01:08:02] book i think called unlucky numbers written on this guy's life and the whole thing he went through

[01:08:07] i didn't read the book i just did research online about him but generally he seems like a rough guy

[01:08:13] from a rough background who you know he made his mistakes he did some bad shit but he also worked he

[01:08:20] you know he he was a working man he tried i'm sure he has as many people who love him as hate him but in

[01:08:28] any case on november 15th 2006 he was assigned to ride shotgun for a truck driver named michael ford

[01:08:35] on an overnight food route to miami they made a delivery in lakeland they made a delivery in

[01:08:40] winter haven and then they stopped at the town star mini mart in frost proof okay which is a real

[01:08:46] place in florida frost proof florida they don't get a lot of snow down there so most places are

[01:08:50] frost proof yeah seems like you wouldn't even really need to name your town frost proof it would just be

[01:08:55] people would know but uh ford asked shakespeare if you wanted anything shakespeare asked for a pair of

[01:09:02] quick picks lottery tickets and gave ford two of his five dollar bills when he returned i mean this is

[01:09:08] that's for me dangerous that ticket wins and it's like well he gave him the money yeah but i would

[01:09:13] still i would be like well i bought it and you you know what i mean like that's a dangerous move

[01:09:17] you would be michael ford we'll get to that in a minute okay but i didn't say i would act that way

[01:09:22] i just said i could see this happening this is how abraham shakespeare ended up with the ticket with

[01:09:27] the numbers 6 12 13 34 42 and 52 the fucking lost number i'm just kidding the last number the jackpot

[01:09:34] was 31 million and he won he took it in a lump sum pattern of 16.9 million after taxes he got 11

[01:09:42] million and change first thing he did put a million dollars in a trust fund for his son that's

[01:09:48] fun so he's paying for at least one of these kids yeah there might be a few more but he's paying for

[01:09:52] one of them that's pretty good then he gave his stepfather a million bucks that's a vibe he gave

[01:09:57] his three stepsisters 250 000 a piece he paid off 185 000 of a mortgage for a friend paid off 60 000

[01:10:06] of a mortgage for a man whose last name he didn't know and paid off 53 000 of a mortgage for a man

[01:10:13] quote out of the neighborhood who he'd known for quote a few years i will say 11 million is not

[01:10:19] enough for this level of generosity yeah this 100 million absolutely pay off the guy you heard is

[01:10:25] having a hard time but 11 mil you might have to like be a little better if you're gonna live this is

[01:10:29] right off the bat he gave away i mean i'm not good at math but at least three million four million

[01:10:35] dollars just without batting an eye just to pay these people's mortgages yeah like so almost half

[01:10:39] is gone on in the first week he gave his brother's son's best friend forty thousand dollars he gave his

[01:10:48] mother twelve thousand and his sister ten thousand so wait so the step kids got like 250 family he

[01:10:54] loved the mother and sister he wasn't as close with clearly he wrote wachovia cashier's checks to his

[01:11:01] friends he paid for funerals and for himself he bought an f-150 pickup a bmw 750i and a new home

[01:11:08] for right around 1.1 million dollars which is 2006 yeah 2006 that home is worth so much more now just

[01:11:16] because yeah at 2006 you could do you could have bought all that i bet you that f-150 was probably

[01:11:21] like 20 grand then like it was everything is so ridiculous now in 2006 the starting msrp of the

[01:11:29] regular cab f-150 was 19,805 the starting msrp for the same model this year is 37,065 which is like

[01:11:39] ten thousand dollars more than the cost would be adjusted for inflation and i won't even get into

[01:11:43] how far behind the median household income is it keeping up with these price hikes because that would

[01:11:48] only activate comrade ed who has many people asking where the ed who puts american flags on our

[01:11:53] merchandise and posts about veterans went turns out both are the same ed as a robot i have much to learn

[01:11:59] about the duality of man you win 11 million now don't fucking tell anybody to put that in your bank

[01:12:05] account because that's not going anywhere now ed as you saw coming abraham shakespeare was sued

[01:12:10] three months after he bought this house and the man who sued him was michael ford the truck driver

[01:12:15] who they got security cam footage of him buying that ticket ford claimed the ticket was his that

[01:12:20] shakespeare had stolen it and the money or what was left of it should be his too and then again we

[01:12:24] also are only going off the word that shakespeare said i gave him my five bucks we don't know we

[01:12:28] weren't there's weren't in the room there's no camera in that car shakespeare swore he never stole

[01:12:33] anything from ford which would definitely come across better if you didn't have a rap sheet of stealing

[01:12:37] from people at the trial abraham shakespeare came to court with a garbage bag stuffed with thousands

[01:12:44] of lottery tickets that he had purchased over the years to prove i'm a degenerate no well in his mind

[01:12:51] he was trying to prove that he'd been buying lottery tickets for a long time so to prove this wasn't some

[01:12:56] one-off yeah just like stole some guy's lottery ticket he's like where's your lottery tickets the guy's

[01:13:01] like i throw them away yeah i don't keep a bag of disappointment he's got he's got a bag of lottery

[01:13:07] tickets and a garbage bag full of fingernail clippings and he brought the wrong one um it took

[01:13:14] the jury just over an hour to decide in shakespeare's favor so he won but the trial cost him another 800

[01:13:20] thousand dollars in legal fees who hired johnny cochran i mean that's so much in legal fees i know

[01:13:26] but i guess if you have 11 million you've spent 4 million 5 million and you figure you want to spend

[01:13:32] another million to keep the remaining 5 million no i get it but i also feel like he probably got

[01:13:36] fleeced by some florida fucking lawyers here who were like yes our hourly rate is 70 000

[01:13:43] asked what he'd do now that the ordeal was over and the money incontestably his shakespeare told the

[01:13:49] tampa tribune my goal is to be able to wake up in the morning get a fishing pole and go fish well you

[01:13:55] should move if that guy who just lost in court still lives near you yeah because you're gonna wake up

[01:14:00] dead as speaking of waking up dead for as rocky as the road was for abraham shakespeare at this point

[01:14:07] he might have survived winning the lottery if the man who sold him his house this is where the story

[01:14:13] gets really crazy so abraham shakespeare has gone through all this already he's given away all this

[01:14:18] money he's been sued by the guy who bought the lottery ticket he wins the money unbeknownst to him

[01:14:24] the man who sold him his house is going around the country telling his story telling abraham's story

[01:14:32] about this down on his luck blue collar man who won the lottery and bought a house he's going around

[01:14:37] telling this story of business conferences he's like a shady real estate guy who's like making a

[01:14:43] buck off of telling giving some sort of tony robbins story like he does like motivational speeches

[01:14:48] yeah so it's at one of these lectures where this real estate agent is approached by a woman in a

[01:14:54] wheelchair who introduces herself as a writer named dd moore she said she'd been in a car accident but

[01:15:01] still wanted to work and you're okay i'm not gonna say anything and and abraham shakespeare sounded like

[01:15:08] the perfect subject for a book she asked if the real estate agent would arrange a meeting between her

[01:15:14] and shakespeare and soon after the agent got the two of them together when dd moore came to the house

[01:15:19] the agent recalled to the tampa bay times she jumped out of a hummer walking no she said she'd healed

[01:15:24] herself through scuba therapy that is fucking great red flag number one and did they say where

[01:15:31] bound writer did they say where they met her i know they're at that conference did you remember

[01:15:36] what did it say with city was it still in florida yeah no i think because everything about this is

[01:15:40] fucking florida man there's florida lady the real estate agent set up the meeting for shakespeare

[01:15:44] and dd at shakespeare's house yeah so i'm saying this woman's presumably from florida as well yes

[01:15:50] this is all the most florida shit well dd so there was a whole big long backstory on dd that i'm

[01:15:56] kind of leaving out she she's as you will see in a moment she's a con artist she's a consummate

[01:16:01] con artist i'm not sure if she's from florida or if she was in florida at the time

[01:16:04] according to the paris review dd's book project was soon abandoned oh my oh no who who would have

[01:16:12] seen that coming well if you had only known that the dd of dd stands for dedicated deceiver

[01:16:17] then you could have seen the red flag raised even higher in the poll she said she'd given up writing

[01:16:22] it after seeing how many people were taking advantage of shakespeare's generosity and how hard writing

[01:16:28] ended up being yeah she wrote five words and was like this sucks she said she wanted to be a

[01:16:34] to help abraham shakespeare manage his assets and that meant setting up an llc under her control

[01:16:41] real real fast though so it sounds like the guy who set up the meeting was there presumably saw her

[01:16:46] jump out of the hummer and at no point was like hey i don't know just weird i don't know if i should

[01:16:50] bring this up this bitch couldn't walk when i saw her last yeah she said i i have a recording of her

[01:16:56] saying oh if only my old paralyzed ass could write a book about an interesting subject yeah that's what

[01:17:02] that's what actually got her here i was like oh i felt bad you know because it's like she still wants

[01:17:06] to work after her legs stopped working i guess yeah she didn't want to be like her legs and stop

[01:17:12] working is what she said to me so more passed herself off as an accomplished businesswoman and

[01:17:24] apparently a writer i guess and without the ability to read or write it was difficult for shakespeare to

[01:17:32] question her claims interesting i didn't think about that yeah that's true shit yeah he was the

[01:17:37] he was the ultimate target he just kind of trusted everything that she said and he couldn't check

[01:17:42] when you first said that you're like not being able to read or write i'm like she lied about that too

[01:17:47] like i thought you're talking about her at first i'm like this woman's unbelievable uh shakespeare

[01:17:52] trusted her enough though and there's some speculation that some of this is that like after the lawsuit you

[01:17:58] know where this guy that he was at least a co-worker with sued him that he was really looking for someone

[01:18:03] to trust and that's part of why he kind of fell into trusting dd more but whatever the reasoning

[01:18:09] he signed over the deeds to three houses to dd oh my god there's no i've never been a writer on any

[01:18:16] project where i'm like first drafts feels pretty good but to do more i'd probably should have like

[01:18:20] a deed to the studio right like well and not just that he gave her so he gave her the deeds to

[01:18:26] three houses ownership of outstanding loans that amounted to nearly four hundred thousand dollars

[01:18:31] and soon she moved her son her boyfriend and herself into the houses i'm gonna go ahead i've

[01:18:37] listen i do plenty i shouldn't like ladies can take complete advantage of me i get it but as soon

[01:18:43] as they were like quick okay i'm also gonna move my boyfriend in that's what i'm like nah get the

[01:18:47] fuck out of here yeah this is over what the hell is that um that snuff box sketch where it's like

[01:18:52] this drinks for me this drinks from my friend alissa this one's for my boyfriend he's like

[01:18:56] fuck you and just like drops the like plate and walks away it's just like each time they do that's

[01:19:01] such a good sketch i mean i don't know if it's misogynistic but it's a great sketch

[01:19:04] it sounds a little misogynistic but hey that sketch is slapped it'll be in the show notes that's comedy

[01:19:09] baby uh and that's not necessarily true but i'm saying it will be in the show notes you can see for

[01:19:13] yourselves it's fantastic getting control of shakespeare's fortune wasn't the first of more

[01:19:18] schemes or the author of the paris review article argues the most audacious i don't know about that

[01:19:26] this scheme though that they mentioned is is pretty nuts in june 2001 someone in wumauma florida

[01:19:34] found dd moore by the side of the road with her wrists bound as deborah mathis and gregory todd

[01:19:40] smith write in that book i mentioned unlucky number more claimed that quote three clean cut tattooed hispanic

[01:19:47] men had abducted and raped her at gunpoint thrown her in a ditch and stolen her car a lincoln navigator

[01:19:53] but her fantasies were always rickety and usually depended on racist stereotypes uh her father even

[01:20:00] said she tells the fibbiest fibs and her lie in this case unraveled just a few days later when a man

[01:20:08] confessed to having helped her stage the event it turns out a credit union was threatening to

[01:20:13] repossess her navigator which she'd stashed in a garage and the whole scheme was her way of keeping

[01:20:19] the car from getting repossessed by collections this is giving stalker episode yeah more was convicted of

[01:20:25] insurance fraud in this case and of falsely reporting a crime and given a year's probation

[01:20:29] when abraham shakespeare went missing in the spring of 2009 dd was pretty quickly looked at as the uh the

[01:20:38] main suspect just a year after meeting shakespeare she was living in his house and spending all of his

[01:20:43] uh lottery money fucking black widow dude for her part more told whoever would listen that shakespeare

[01:20:49] was in hiding and that she could talk to him whenever she wanted he intentionally did not want to be found

[01:20:55] she told the lake land ledger he didn't care what it took as police began focusing their investigation

[01:21:01] on her more floated some crazy explanations for why shakespeare was hiding first she told the cops he

[01:21:08] was pretending to be dying of aids so that he could avoid paying child support oh my god this is this

[01:21:14] sounds a lot like this lady sucks and i have to bleep that out i guess when the cops didn't bite on that

[01:21:21] explanation she said there was a tape of shakespeare having sex with a minor and then he fled town before

[01:21:26] it came to light this woman this woman's a piece of shit she was coming up with even crazy

[01:21:31] stories in private one was that shakespeare was killed by a drug dealer from miami another was

[01:21:37] that he perished in the earthquake in haiti which had just killed like 100 000 people or whatever when

[01:21:42] this happened sure um unfortunately she was spinning these lies and concocting them with one of shakespeare's

[01:21:49] friends who had gained dd moore's trust while operating as a police informant so like a ci a criminal

[01:21:57] basically yeah yeah he managed to get dd she didn't know that he was informant but he did manage to get

[01:22:05] her to confess that shakespeare was buried in her backyard and even got her to produce the murder

[01:22:11] weapon oh my god she still though even to this guy who was secretly operating as a ci she still never

[01:22:20] confessed to killing shakespeare she said the murder was committed by this drug dealer from miami who then

[01:22:26] forced her to dig the hole cover the body in lime and hire a company to pour a 30 by 30 concrete slab

[01:22:33] on top of him this is some florida shit dude and sure enough that is where shakespeare's body was found

[01:22:38] in a nine foot deep hole in the backyard of a home that dd had purchased with his lottery winnings oh my

[01:22:44] god what a scumbag on february 19th 2010 moore was finally charged with first degree murder it's still to

[01:22:50] this day no one really knows what happened the prosecution argued that dd and shakespeare had an

[01:22:55] argument about money that resulted in moore shooting him twice in the chest but she never confessed and

[01:23:02] she was sentenced to life without parole and to this day maintains her innocence she even says she

[01:23:07] has evidence to prove it though unsurprisingly she won't produce that evidence for anybody no of course

[01:23:13] she won't so that's the tragic tale of abraham shakespeare greatest name in the biz worst taste in

[01:23:19] women there was something i actually left out where at one point i know we mentioned that he paid off

[01:23:24] someone's mortgage whose last name he didn't know there was a point where he was living with three

[01:23:30] different women one of whom whose last name he didn't know and when asked about it he was quoted

[01:23:37] in the paper as saying i don't be trying to know anyone's last names what an amazing weird stance to

[01:23:45] have yeah he's a man who just felt you know people should keep to themselves i like that actually

[01:23:51] nothing wrong with that i do appreciate a little anonymity a little mystery in this day and age

[01:23:56] yeah i'll give you four hundred thousand dollars to not tell me your last name yeah please please

[01:24:01] this goes for all of our fans uh we don't need to know anything about you know anything about you

[01:24:06] i do yeah it's crazy the dd of it all is just nuts of like to be someone who's heard something at a real

[01:24:15] estate thing and then to be like i think that person's someone i could take advantage of what i

[01:24:20] and then like put the wheels in motion to go be a piece of shit what i'd love to know and maybe someone

[01:24:26] maybe if i read this book unlucky numbers maybe it's in there i would love to know what dd was doing

[01:24:31] at that real estate thing in the first place i don't want to alienate any of our fans who are working

[01:24:36] real estate but real estate is one of those jobs where people show up there that's like yeah this

[01:24:41] wasn't your first choice you've had a couple and they also you know have to go to a lot of these

[01:24:45] kind of seminars well but what i mean is like yeah i don't there's no indication the research i did did

[01:24:50] she show up as a realtor did she show up with the idea that she was posing as a writer like i don't know

[01:24:56] what she was doing there you know what i mean i think she showed up to learn something about real

[01:25:00] estate to you know real estate it's pretty good if you're a fucking con person because it's like oh i'm

[01:25:05] going to go to a lot of houses i'm going to find out about the people who live there i'm going to see

[01:25:09] these neighborhoods of rich people from selling a rich person house if you're coming to look at a

[01:25:13] house you're someone with enough money that i can potentially scam out of it that said i think she

[01:25:18] may have actually been there for like real estate purposes then heard this story and was like this

[01:25:23] is a fucking jackpot i need a way in yeah yeah like was there for normal stuff and then pivoted called

[01:25:27] an audible right like an evil audible yeah it was like fuck you know uh flipping houses that are

[01:25:33] going to fall apart in six months or whatever like this guy is my yeah the housing market you can

[01:25:39] drive it up but that takes longer than driving a man insane or whatever i don't know i couldn't find a

[01:25:43] way into that but yes dd sucks may she r.i.p forever uh if you're still with us r.i.p god bless hopefully

[01:25:50] soon and r.i.p god bless for real to abraham who was just a guy who gave away a lot of his money

[01:25:56] and he sounds like me sounds like a pushover yeah sounds like when it comes to ladies like it's easy to

[01:26:02] manipulate and this poor son of a bitch well our last lottery winner is a woman with i think a much

[01:26:09] what's the word i'm looking for more elaborate lie no she's a woman with a much cleaner conscience

[01:26:14] than dd moore was it's hard to beat dd moore there's some people that i know who can give dd a

[01:26:20] run for their money but no she's a real piece of work that evelyn evelyn adams our next lottery winner

[01:26:27] beat some truly incredible odds and won the jackpot not once but twice oh just six months

[01:26:34] apart in 1985 and 1986 oh wow she was from trenton new jersey jersey again yep she had a lifelong habit

[01:26:43] well life i mean she'd been doing it for like 15 or 20 years at this point but like the capital of

[01:26:48] new jersey that fucked us the other night in a trivia match piece of shit people who weren't

[01:26:54] there we which was nobody nobody listening this was there no ellie ellie ellie was there he enjoyed

[01:26:59] it he enjoys our show but no we we fucked up we didn't know trenton it was an answer to a trivia

[01:27:03] question could have saved our ass um evelyn adams had a lifelong habit of spending 25 bucks a week on

[01:27:08] lottery tickets but never won big this one's also interesting and the reason i kind of included it is

[01:27:14] because most of these people's stories we only find out about after the fact because the news where the

[01:27:20] element is they won the lottery no no the news where the element for a lot of these people is that they

[01:27:24] burned through all their money and they're broke and miserable even though they won the lottery true

[01:27:28] she had articles written about her contemporaneously because she won two in a row so it's a really

[01:27:33] interesting snapshot of a woman at the high before the fall oh true you know most people i mean

[01:27:40] it's cool when you win the lottery but a lot of people aren't necessarily getting something

[01:27:44] written about them because it does happen fairly regularly but now they have before you start up

[01:27:48] with her do you ever see those books i feel like there's books out there of people who have won the

[01:27:52] lottery five six seven times and then they like write books well like here's how i tricked the system

[01:27:57] and i've never seen those really i would assume those people are all criminals yeah i bet you i bet

[01:28:02] they are but i've seen it i'll try and find something for the show notes or something but yeah or for a

[01:28:06] thing we post online or trivia bot or something oh my god searching for this took ed down a rabbit hole

[01:28:13] that has him excitedly making a powerpoint presentation to deliver at their next premium

[01:28:17] live stream but i've definitely seen it like something it's like we're here with doug smith

[01:28:23] he's always got like glasses and computers there was that one um docu-series about the guy who won

[01:28:29] all the mcdonald's lot or the mcdonald's monopoly nobody won it that yeah that's all rigged yeah

[01:28:34] again i assume if you're winning a lottery six or seven times you've rigged it somehow that's crazy

[01:28:39] i think i'm sure the first chapter is like what you're gonna want to do is be worth 100 million

[01:28:43] and then just buy so many tickets yeah uh so this article from february 14th 1986

[01:28:49] valentine's day please valentine's day 1986 yeah don't you this is a great i'll interrupt my last

[01:28:54] time interrupting probably for the night i have this amazing video that makes me laugh all the time

[01:28:58] a home video of my dad on christmas eve and it's a video of my grandpa like my dad's operating the

[01:29:04] camera and my grandpa's walking in and waving hello and i think my dad says something like

[01:29:08] you know here we are on christmas eve or whatever and then my grandpa says uh december 24th and then

[01:29:14] i hear my dad behind the camera it's like amazing it's like one of the types of ways my dad is very

[01:29:18] funny but also sometimes mean is you just hear him behind the camera go yeah i think they'll get that

[01:29:23] when i said christmas eve frank like by adding his name is so much funnier to me too wait and was this

[01:29:28] your dad's dad or your mom's dad it's my mom's dad who's funnier yeah so it's his like father-in-law

[01:29:34] yeah but anyway it made me think of it so yeah you can always you can go right in with valentine's

[01:29:38] day 1986 there it is adams has beaten odds estimated at one in 15 trillion to become the

[01:29:45] nation's first two-time lottery millionaire by winning the new jersey lottery's pick six jackpot

[01:29:50] for a second time i think that number was sensationalized a little bit trillion yeah one

[01:29:55] in 15 trillion yeah it seems like a lot um because that means anyone who's won it six or seven

[01:30:00] times would be one in i'll find this book this book probably exists i saw some more recent estimates

[01:30:05] saying it was more like one in 5.2 million the chances of doing this twice but anyway quick pick

[01:30:10] means that you don't choose the numbers right uh it's the pick six jackpot oh i thought it was quick

[01:30:14] okay got you okay pick six so he can put his own he can put the loss numbers yeah yeah yeah she won

[01:30:19] 3.9 million in a drawing last october thursday she claimed a one and a half million dollar prize she won

[01:30:25] in monday night's drawing sam valenza publisher of lottery players magazine of cherry hill new jersey

[01:30:31] and a man i'm sure has some unpaid debts uh said there have been no other reports of two-time u.s

[01:30:38] million dollar jackpot winners he said 22 states and the district of columbia have lotteries so this

[01:30:44] is before all states even had lotteries that's crazy i didn't think about this yeah 86 only 22 states

[01:30:49] had lotteries i was already born i was already born into a barely half the country had lottery

[01:30:55] when i was recently conceived so i don't love that i don't like think about the conception period but i

[01:31:01] was already alive i never expected to win twice adam said thursday as she redeemed her latest winning

[01:31:07] ticket it comes as a complete shock which is something that someone who is not shocked make sure

[01:31:12] to tell the newspaper oh shit she purchased both of her winning tickets at the convenience mart where she

[01:31:17] worked for 10 years that's risky her fiancee who split the cost of the latest winning ticket with

[01:31:22] her owns the store okay real fast couple things so one how expensive is the ticket need to be splitting

[01:31:28] the cost another person are there tickets her fiancee you think at that point maybe you're kind of

[01:31:32] oh but do you think it's a thing where you know let me get if it's a one dollar lottery it's not saying

[01:31:38] that's what this is but if it's a one dollar lottery i can give them five dollars and they'll put all

[01:31:43] five number sets on the one ticket so maybe it's like hey give me a hundred dollars worth of picks

[01:31:49] and that would make sense for splitting the ticket with someone but that's still bananas again she

[01:31:54] bought both these winning tickets at the convenience store where she used to work who's no where she

[01:31:59] still worked and where her fiancee owned the place but isn't there a thing no different than like you

[01:32:04] can't hey you can't uh put your name in for this raffle if you work for mcdonald's like you

[01:32:09] couldn't if you work for mcdonald's you couldn't play the mcdonald's monopoly so if you're telling

[01:32:13] me that no she doesn't work for the lottery commission she just works for the for the quickie

[01:32:17] if you if you work for the state lottery commission maybe you can't but i guess i mean i guess it's

[01:32:22] just a little weird that you work and own the place where you buy the tickets but also where else you

[01:32:27] buying lottery tickets from i guess if you work and own a convenience store so that's yes but yeah

[01:32:32] you guess you wouldn't go to a different convenience store to play the lottery but if we what we discussed

[01:32:36] earlier is true if as the uh institution that sold the ticket you receive a portion of the winnings

[01:32:43] right so it's like this guy's gonna get half of the tickets pay out plus his company's gonna get but

[01:32:48] also how i guess i guess now that i think more about it how just because you work there i don't

[01:32:53] know how you would rig it rig it neither do i but i'm just saying it seems suspect yeah a little suspect

[01:32:58] anyway the article continues the 5.4 million total will be paid in 20 annual payments so she chose or

[01:33:05] maybe at the time you couldn't choose a lump sum but wise decision to get annual payments instead of

[01:33:11] lump sum here why is it wise again i think you get more or maybe i just think that because it feels like

[01:33:17] a psychological experiment yeah but 20 annual payments for how many years oh what's 20 annual

[01:33:22] payment well when yes but if someone told me i i guess because i'm an idiot but if someone told me

[01:33:28] like hey you have 20 annual payments on your car i'd be like i pay you 20 times this year

[01:33:32] that's how my brain just went there but i think i just don't have any money for 20 years and i mean

[01:33:38] no fucking way i would never i would never i don't think i'm going to be here next year i don't want

[01:33:43] 20 annual payments it was such a shock adam said for 20 years to think i've got so much money and now to

[01:33:50] know i've got more adams 32 of point pleasant said she will take her 10 year old daughter from a

[01:33:56] previous marriage on a trip to disney world look out big spender yeah well these days disney world

[01:34:02] is gonna run you like five grand but still wait so point pleasant west virginia no point pleasant new

[01:34:07] jersey okay that's less interesting less moth manny i want to go to business school adam said

[01:34:12] i've got to learn how to manage this money don't you already manage like a successful quickie martin

[01:34:17] well we don't know if it's successful and i don't know if you want to gamble right now but you want to

[01:34:23] bet if she learned how to manage the money i don't think she did adams and hermit edward bayshore 45

[01:34:30] also point pleasant new jersey will get married in april bayshore plans to sell the store and the

[01:34:35] couple may move to pennsylvania that's always his place not hers okay got you but adams won't be

[01:34:40] playing the lottery in pennsylvania new jersey or any other state i can't honestly continue playing

[01:34:46] she said other people will say let us have a chance or they'll say arrest this woman she keeps

[01:34:51] winning the lottery yeah that's more than i'm thinking yeah there's a lot of little things

[01:34:55] they're saying and doing which are which sound very suspect we're getting married we're moving we're

[01:35:00] changing our names we're it's like we're never playing the lottery again we're never going to ask

[01:35:05] any questions we're going to leave the country it's fine don't worry about it yeah after winning her

[01:35:10] first big prize adam said she never considered not playing the lottery again in fact she began

[01:35:14] spending twice as much money about 100 weekly on lottery tickets she had all that extra money from her

[01:35:20] first win yes exactly between her two big prizes adams also did say she won an additional 500 bucks in

[01:35:26] the lottery's daily game so she she picked up a little extra coin playing every day for another

[01:35:31] six months i mean that's gonna get that she just bought herself 500 plays yeah 100 days of dollar

[01:35:37] pickups after winning her first jackpot she paid off some bills and set up a college fund for her

[01:35:41] daughter she also bought herself a car but here's where the problems start because adams had some

[01:35:47] other lottery winners money in the back she bought at a strip club parking lot she had now too much

[01:35:52] money adams perhaps none unsurprisingly my editorializing uh did not go to business school

[01:36:00] and learn how to manage her money instead evelyn's double win thrust her into the local spotlight and

[01:36:05] she lost her privacy i was known she said i couldn't go anywhere without being recognized i had a

[01:36:11] scarlet dollar symbol placed on me within her own family there were mixed reactions to her incredible luck

[01:36:16] and good fortune evelyn said most that bitch yeah most of my family was great but a few of my relatives

[01:36:23] were angry because i had so much wait didn't she win only like well it wasn't a ton right she won five

[01:36:29] and a half million dollars total in the 80s that goes further than it would now yeah yeah um after

[01:36:34] winning her second jackpot evelyn was full of plans for the future and excited to enjoy her newfound wealth

[01:36:39] seven years after her double win evelyn and her fiance were married and his store which had become

[01:36:45] popular with lottery ticket buyers hoping some of her luck would rub off on them was sold evelyn hoped

[01:36:51] to use her winnings to return to school and study music with dreams of one day opening a music store

[01:36:55] so that's changed from business yeah business school or opening a music store or starting a band or yeah

[01:37:02] but instead of doing any of that evelyn developed a severe gambling addiction oh no

[01:37:08] by 2012 evelyn and let's be real that's a long fucking time to have a gambling addiction 1986 to 2012

[01:37:16] she'd spent all her money after hitting the slot machines at the casinos in atlantic city a bit too

[01:37:21] frequently and it's always the fucking slots like i got people in our lives where like the slots did

[01:37:27] them in it's the dumbest weirdest millions on slots yeah no it's i've every time i've ever walked through

[01:37:33] a casino at 4 30 in the morning it's just people at slot machines how often are you walking through

[01:37:39] a casino at 4 30 in the morning not as often as maybe i would like because you can smoke indoors

[01:37:43] which is a lot of fun but uh yeah i i but i'm just saying in the few instances i have it's just i

[01:37:49] have a great photo from one of those instances but in a few instances i have it's always just like

[01:37:54] man it's depressing it's loud it's everyone just sitting there just clicking that button over and

[01:38:00] over again it's crazy well evelyn says winning the lottery isn't always what it's cracked up to be

[01:38:06] i won the american dream but i lost it too it was a very hard fall it's called rock bottom

[01:38:12] 20 years after her historic win evelyn was living in a trailer park penniless reflecting on what

[01:38:20] happened she said quote everybody wanted my money everybody had their handout i never learned one

[01:38:25] simple word in the english language no i wish i had the chance to do it all over again i'd be much

[01:38:31] smarter about it now i was a big time gambler i didn't drop a million dollars but it was a lot of

[01:38:36] money she concluded i made mistakes some i regret some i don't i'm human i can't go back now so i just

[01:38:43] go forward one step at a time she's still with us ah that's a good question i believe she is do you

[01:38:49] think she put all of her remaining money on mike tyson tonight she should have i hope she did i

[01:38:54] guess you guys now know when she had she had no remaining money though she would have had to put up

[01:38:58] her trailer no we don't know because that was in 2012 oh that's true she could have made some money

[01:39:02] back she could have won the fucking lottery again likely at this point so for me after reading all

[01:39:09] these stories i have a big question about why this always seems to happen to people who win the lottery

[01:39:15] lottery some people would tell you the lottery is cursed gambling is evil reap what you sow demons

[01:39:23] etc i think the real answer is much less crazy i mean a lot of people will tell you that people who

[01:39:28] win the lottery aren't good with their money and to an extent i think that's true realistically the

[01:39:32] people who weren't good with their money beforehand because they're throwing money at the lottery yes

[01:39:36] exactly but i also think it goes a little bit deeper than that because you know grain of salt here

[01:39:42] obviously because some of those statistics we discussed earlier say basically everyone's bought

[01:39:46] a lottery ticket one time or another so i'm not saying everyone who buys a lottery ticket is crazy

[01:39:52] or down on their luck but my feeling is amongst people who do buy lottery tickets and if you're gonna

[01:39:58] win you're probably buying them often enough that your odds are increasing you know most you're

[01:40:04] feeling that serotonin rush that dopamine at least more times than me who buys none of them yeah and and

[01:40:10] so you amongst those people you have your fair share of desperate people gambling addicts and people

[01:40:15] who probably aren't the best yeah at money management or impulse control i've seen probably

[01:40:20] 2 000 times in my life that's that number seems high when i said it out loud but i've seen a lot of

[01:40:25] people like picking up discarded scratch-off tickets like from the ground in the parking lot when i'm

[01:40:30] like in the parking lot of realms i mean i'll cop to that i've done it i don't do it every time i see

[01:40:34] one but i've i've picked them up just to check yeah i mean people have done it i think my mom's done it

[01:40:39] not like in a degenerate way i just think that people are like well you know it's like finding

[01:40:43] a penny on the ground yeah you're like hmm but i'm saying is that you know it's just enough it's a

[01:40:47] interesting thing that you will see yeah but where i'm going with this is i think what makes it

[01:40:51] worse in the sense of these potentially money management or impulse control challenged people

[01:40:58] is that if you are somebody who has continued to buy tickets or has bet at all on winning the lottery

[01:41:06] when it turns out that you were right that's where all bets are really off because now what you're

[01:41:11] telling yourself is well i made the correct money decisions so everything i do now will be the

[01:41:17] correct way decision yeah a little bit i mean i don't know that they're necessarily thinking it

[01:41:21] through that deeply but i i would imagine that's kind of what happens is like i've spent all this

[01:41:26] money i've won the lottery and now every you know i wouldn't have won the lottery if i wasn't doing

[01:41:32] the right thing not morally but just if i wasn't making good decisions i never would have won lottery

[01:41:37] so therefore now what i do is correct it's also the ultimate fuck you to everybody else too where

[01:41:43] it's like there's no version where you're playing if you're playing a lottery a lot a lot yeah there's

[01:41:47] definitely people in your life who are like you should maybe not play the lottery every week

[01:41:50] so hitting is also a great like fuck you idiots right like you told me not even to do this

[01:41:55] you told me i should save him money now look at me i'm driving around

[01:41:57] in 13 cars that i've piled on top of each other and i'm driving in the top i'm on the top car i

[01:42:03] hired some local mechanic to make this weird long steering wheel now look at me i'm driving around

[01:42:08] king i'm ruining all the street lights in town i also think it doesn't help and i didn't know this

[01:42:15] but i think it doesn't help that in most states who wins the lottery and how much they win it for

[01:42:20] is a matter of public record i'm sure it is yeah it often has to be published it's not just public

[01:42:26] record that if you go downtown you can bring it up but that like you have to publish it in a paper

[01:42:31] or publish it like when you do a name change you know you have to publish it somewhere or like yeah

[01:42:35] we did that for for the for the dba on this show and so i think that makes it really easy for people

[01:42:42] to come out of the woodwork either start trying to date you yeah or you know whatever i mean i'm sure

[01:42:47] there's people who keep their eye on yeah dating or asking for money or offering investment opportunities

[01:42:52] yes some like dd is going to come out of the woodwork you're going to do that thing where

[01:42:55] fucking willie wonka comes out of the factory all limping then she does like a somersault into your

[01:43:00] life well the public record thing i wonder if it has to do with the fact that you have to pay all

[01:43:04] these state taxes on it and that like there has to be a record of you can't like tell the irs you

[01:43:09] don't have any money yeah i mean i think to some degree there's an element of a lot of the money

[01:43:14] is going to fund like you know roads or public projects like that's when people buy lottery tickets that

[01:43:20] money is going to fund those things so i would imagine that part of it's that i also did look

[01:43:25] up according to the north american association of state and provincial lotteries these laws exist to

[01:43:31] show that the lottery is run honestly and that the funds have been paid out to a real person oh that

[01:43:35] makes sense otherwise states fear there could be all kinds of skullduggery afoot and you know it seems

[01:43:41] like people have tried to cheat at the lottery anyway so if you can do it anonymously and win

[01:43:46] anonymously then you know but there are 16 states that do let you stay anonymous and i don't know

[01:43:53] that anyone's ever studied like you know is there a lot more fraud and waste in the anonymous lottery

[01:43:59] states versus the public lottery states there might be a lot less people's lives fell apart in the

[01:44:05] anonymous states if they can just keep it to themselves that they won yeah potentially i mean it

[01:44:10] also i would i i might have said this earlier i i do i mean i'd be cool with like giving people mad

[01:44:15] money if i won enough money but i'd also treat that shit like i robbed a bank for this money

[01:44:20] like it's like we don't use it for five years we won't ever talk about it we go our separate ways

[01:44:26] we live on what seems like would be your paycheck but then go on dope vacations well i think i it's

[01:44:32] funny i was looking around on reddit for other like more personal stories of people who had won the

[01:44:37] lottery or people who had won the lottery and then had their lives fall apart and there were plenty

[01:44:41] of those none of them were particularly interesting or worth sharing but there there were people on

[01:44:46] there who had said that they had a you know a friend or they'd been dating somebody and they

[01:44:51] were never sure it didn't seem like they had a job or whatever and then they would find out a year or

[01:44:55] two into it that like mom or dad actually had won five million six million dollars and they were doing

[01:45:01] it like that i think the difference for a lot of these stories that are well known is even if

[01:45:07] they're not a matter of public record when you win that much money at the lottery you end up on the

[01:45:11] news yeah you know like and then that and that's really so if you win three four five million dollars

[01:45:17] and you're smart about it and you invest it and whatever i think that's a really smart way to go

[01:45:21] about it is like you just don't say anything you for the first five years you don't spend much more

[01:45:26] money you don't have it seem like you have anything but i think when you win 100 million 200

[01:45:31] million a billion dollars there's a picture of you with a giant check yeah you can't you can't

[01:45:35] escape it whether it's public private whatever so anyway before we hit the fear tier i thought it

[01:45:46] might be fun to spend a few minutes speculating how we would ruin our lives if we won the lottery

[01:45:51] i guess we kind of been talking a little bit about it but yeah what do you want to know

[01:45:54] i mean i think i would probably i was thinking about this on the drive over here because i knew i

[01:45:59] wanted to talk about it a little bit and i wasn't sure i didn't have i've never had a dream of i'd win

[01:46:03] the lottery i mean obviously one thing would be i would just start funding my own films see that's

[01:46:07] making movies for me another thing that i would ruin my life doing is trying to create jurassic

[01:46:13] park oh sure or at least reverse engineer a chicken into a dinosaur i don't think you're gonna get

[01:46:18] enough money for that to reverse engineer a chicken into a dinosaur absolutely no i think you're not

[01:46:22] gonna get enough money for that that's not expensive no it's just it's just morally it's it's ethically

[01:46:27] questionable i don't know but i don't think it's expensive or whatever but it's uh i don't think i

[01:46:32] think we spend like the private sector of medicine spends like billions and billions if not

[01:46:37] trillions of dollars every year on like stuff and i feel like they haven't made any dinosaurs

[01:46:40] well but those are two different things so like cloning dinosaurs is very different from reverse

[01:46:46] breeding a chicken into a dinosaur i don't even want to know i don't even want to know why you know

[01:46:50] the term reverse breeding we because i'm fascinated by there's this one artist uh who's done these

[01:46:56] speculative a series of speculative art called nova sores and it's based on i think something that

[01:47:02] maybe jack horner the famous paleontologist from uh jurassic park speculated that we know enough

[01:47:09] about the genetics of modern birds to know which genes we would essentially have to turn off like

[01:47:15] which genes evolved them into birds and which genes have to be turned off to sort of reverse breed

[01:47:20] them back into something that is much more dinosaur-like so instead of a beak they have a snout

[01:47:25] their teeth come back out their tails balance differently yeah they have fewer feathers that kind

[01:47:30] of thing i fucking i don't even want to see the first couple ones you make no well that's crazy

[01:47:35] looking it's one of those things where i if i had to bet i would say someone's probably done this

[01:47:40] because it's not that many generations of chickens i just think you create a lot of monstrous dying in

[01:47:45] pain i think there's these are people who have the term burn it down in a holster just ready to go

[01:47:51] be like you know what burn it down i don't know what we were thinking so that i think i could probably

[01:47:55] fund and turn into a little bit of a mad scientist cloning dinosaurs is a whole other i mean

[01:48:00] that's where you gotta have won a couple billion dollars to even think about it because that is

[01:48:04] you'd have to win a couple billion just to like think about buying a football team true i don't

[01:48:08] know what's the number for you like for this version of us ruining our lives what are we thinking

[01:48:12] we want here if i want a hundred million if i want a hundred million dollars hundred million well

[01:48:17] okay in 2024 that might get us two chickens well right after taxes and everything yeah well

[01:48:23] okay here's the thing i'd like to tell myself that there's no number at which i will ruin my life

[01:48:27] because i'm smart enough that i would be careful about it and i would hand out money but only a

[01:48:32] little bit i've almost ruined my life with having no money numerous times i don't think i have a ton

[01:48:37] of problems with impulse control i have tons of problems okay i'm the interrupter of the group i

[01:48:43] need to know how you would do this because i i think i'm less susceptible i you know i would

[01:48:49] definitely if i won a billion dollars the lottery i would definitely set aside 50 to 70 million

[01:48:54] dollars to do a megalopolis you know and just make a movie you know crazy expensive do whatever i

[01:49:01] wanted yeah i don't but i don't know if that would ruin my life i would definitely set aside

[01:49:06] a ton of money to not make a megalopolis like the first million is being used to change my

[01:49:12] fucking identity like i don't want anyone to know i have that money there's no fucking way

[01:49:16] so and i would feel that way about winning fucking two million dollars so then i would set like a hundred

[01:49:22] million dollars aside and say that like there's this is the amount of money i don't want to fucking

[01:49:26] mess up right i want to make sure this is here so that i can go be an animal right other ways put

[01:49:30] that in the s&p 500 exactly i fuck i mean people who care about me listen to this podcast i don't

[01:49:37] want to be that honest i think i would uh i would make myself thin um well those epics 200 bucks a

[01:49:44] month no i mean i want something where they just give me a different body okay i want some like your head

[01:49:49] off this body yeah okay i am i'm rich now i don't want the shit anyone can get give me the thing where

[01:49:55] you found a body somewhere i don't care it's mine now i want the substance ryan reynolds has gone

[01:50:01] missing and ed has a nice body yeah still stupid head um fuck i guess i would do that done plenty

[01:50:08] of drugs i don't think i need any more of those so that's not interesting anymore i guess i would just

[01:50:12] see the world in a way that no one can bother me in like a gross terrible way yeah where it's like

[01:50:18] oh i want to see that but i want to skip the line on everything i don't want to fucking fly

[01:50:23] commercial and i don't want to be in line for disney rides and i don't want to i guess i just

[01:50:29] want to be like max selfish in a way that a single person with no children or responsibilities could be

[01:50:35] well and that would eventually ruin your life well yeah because if i ever lost the ability

[01:50:38] and had to wait in line again or had to fly commercial again yeah it would feel like your life you know

[01:50:43] you become an you become a selfish inward looking person who doesn't care about others i guess what

[01:50:48] this has revealed is that i've always wanted to be that and haven't had the means and now i've had

[01:50:52] the means to really blossom evolutionarily blossom into the monster i think i can be there we go what a

[01:50:59] note to end on ladies and gentlemen subscribe to the premium if you if you can if you can we really

[01:51:06] need the money ed is a few hundred million dollars away from becoming a sociopath because right now i

[01:51:12] am broke and affable and and just such a sweet pea but i just know that give me that coin give me that

[01:51:18] vault of coins i can swim in and then come out of the deep end monstrous so let's then place winning the

[01:51:25] lottery on our fear tier where do you want to put it negative 20 ed's still hoping that we are willing

[01:51:33] this into reality by doing this episode negative 20 i think we both need to we need to win the lottery

[01:51:38] without even fucking playing that's where immaculate lottery wins yeah i i mean i would put it if we're

[01:51:45] gonna put it on the scale for real i would put it at a one i'm not particularly afraid of it i guess in

[01:51:50] my darkest moments i might put it at a two or a three because that much money does kind of i do believe

[01:51:56] that as the communist of the podcast not the beginning of this episode everyone thinks i'm

[01:52:02] fucking ricky sickle i do believe that significant amounts of money i think can eat away your humanity

[01:52:08] because what it allows you to do with any real large amount of money and and we can debate what

[01:52:14] number that is but i do believe that a large enough amount of money allows you to remove yourself from

[01:52:20] society in ways that aren't healthy for you or the people around you you don't have to operate by the

[01:52:26] rules of society and i don't know that anybody is a uh genetically born and bred good enough person to

[01:52:34] have their soul survive that i think you ultimately do suffer the consequences if if you don't handle

[01:52:41] that money responsibly and and treat it with care and and treat your treat your role and responsibility

[01:52:47] as a person with that much wealth carefully so i have not seen one example where that person has done

[01:52:53] what you're describing so uh i think anyone with too much money is monstrous uh and then again people

[01:53:00] are gonna be like you're just saying that because you don't have all that money and like yeah maybe

[01:53:03] but like randy newman said and i'm paraphrasing but he said you know i have nothing but contempt

[01:53:08] for anyone too successful because they must be doing something dishonest and so you know what are you

[01:53:13] gonna do i i would agree and i so that's why i guess i would put winning the lottery possibly at a

[01:53:18] two or three because it does you never know what things it would awaken in you if you didn't have

[01:53:24] to play by anyone else's rules and i should probably just add to my answer you know i'd hook up my family

[01:53:29] and stuff too in case you're listening uh of course i mean i think i think we both i think for both of us

[01:53:36] one of the things that would be potentially life ruining is i don't know i think i said this at the

[01:53:40] beginning but uh we've taken a couple breaks in this recording so i don't remember but yeah i mean you

[01:53:46] once you have the ability to be infinitely generous or you feel like you can be infinitely generous

[01:53:51] uh and you're not good with money you're not good at keeping track or budgeting i could see that

[01:53:56] spending getting out of control because yeah you and i i think would hook up our friends hook up our

[01:54:00] family hook up strangers like make a movie fund someone something or other yeah and you're not

[01:54:05] keeping an eye on the bill because you're like fuck the bill there's no such thing as a bill anymore

[01:54:10] that's exactly you know and then that's how you really get yourself in trouble because you stop

[01:54:14] thinking about those things and we would definitely be those guys because we've been broke yeah and i i

[01:54:18] get mad at anybody who's like either the bullied who become bullies or the broke people who get money

[01:54:23] and now they want to keep people broke like that's ridiculous like i think once you've stepped

[01:54:27] walked in someone's shoes you're you're a little bit more susceptible you're like oh i'll help out

[01:54:30] here i'll help out there help out yeah so which is why i think it's so weird that like everyone looks

[01:54:34] up in this country to the super wealthy and it's like these people don't give a shit about you

[01:54:39] no at all because of everything chris just said about like they've they've become insular because

[01:54:44] they've had no reason to have to commune in any way well it's why it's why artists who get extremely

[01:54:50] wealthy i think their art tends to suffer it not universal i'm sure there's uh you know exceptions

[01:54:56] that prove the rule but whether you're a stand-up comic or you're a screenwriter or a director once you

[01:55:04] stop living the life of a regular person and thinking about things that happen to regular people

[01:55:09] who make up most of your audience i mean to bring up that guy earlier without giving anything away

[01:55:14] but friends the television show friends there's a famous story uh there's a scene where they go to

[01:55:19] the atm in the show and there was a discussion at the right in the writer's room this is very different

[01:55:24] from the writer's rooms that i've worked in this is back when you made insane money in hollywood yeah

[01:55:28] and they were landing on like i don't know it should probably be like when they go to the atm if

[01:55:32] they show the number it should probably be like 200 000 right they would have 200 grand how much

[01:55:36] the character would have character would have on the show when they go to the atm yeah and the

[01:55:40] writer's assistant was like what no what like do you guys actually think that like regular people

[01:55:46] just have like two three hundred four hundred thousand dollars in their bank account yeah and uh they

[01:55:51] were just so out of touch all the writers were making so much money the actors were making a million

[01:55:54] dollars an episode they just had no idea what that number should be yeah because in their minds it's

[01:55:59] like well we're really low-balling what's in our accounts yeah yeah so it's like dude she works at

[01:56:05] the fucking central perk coffee shop like there's not gonna have six hundred thousand dollars in her

[01:56:10] bank account yeah she's not gonna have a savings account she's living paycheck to paycheck none of

[01:56:15] these people should be in these apartments hey yeah for those apartments jesus christ yeah so that's

[01:56:19] just a good example of like how quickly people can fall out of touch with shit you know after

[01:56:23] getting a lot of money so like my answer i gave for like how i'd be shitty after winning the lottery

[01:56:27] was was partially based on this like co-worker i had and some family friends who have just fucking

[01:56:32] buco dollars who i saw that like money lets them become the main character in their fucking story

[01:56:37] yeah like all the time they completely forget kind of like what you were saying earlier they just forget

[01:56:42] the everyday needs and wants of regular ass people and then they're just like you're all in my story

[01:56:47] now yeah i'm first they get to they get to write the book when they when they're sitting on the

[01:56:51] cash exactly so that's you know i worked in a room with someone who was very fucking like that who

[01:56:56] older person who made a ton of money yeah back when you made a ton of money on sitcoms and some

[01:57:02] family friends i've seen over the years where you know it's just a very different conversation with

[01:57:08] those folks everything i was saying earlier about all the things i would do it comes from those

[01:57:11] people like the like i would never fly first class isn't good enough i'm not flying private i'm

[01:57:16] not flying yeah if i'm not doing this it's not whatever so that really informed my answer with how

[01:57:22] i would become shittier but that said great episode let's try and win some money soon hell

[01:57:26] yeah we did it let's get some scratchers to celebrate yeah man i mean i wish it was 20 more

[01:57:31] stories these were a lot of fun well we can revisit i mean there are more stories like i said a lot of

[01:57:35] them kind of follow pretty similar beats but i i'm sure there's others out there that are fascinating

[01:57:41] and hey if you're listening to this show and you have a family member who's won the lottery

[01:57:46] uh write in write to our email scare it all the time podcast at gmail.com uh let us know if they

[01:57:52] handled it well or if they handled it poorly and if you guys have some good stories we'll we'll read

[01:57:58] some on the show we'll have you on fuck it yeah we'll have you on if it's really good um let us know

[01:58:04] and if and if by the way if you've won the lottery sign up for premium i can use your money poorly

[01:58:12] yeah yeah uh but that's it for this week guys we've got one week left of this season

[01:58:18] uh it's a doozy it's a doozy it's gonna be great but until then i'm chris collari and i'm still poor

[01:58:24] and this has been scared all the time we'll see you next time good evening scared all the time is

[01:58:30] co-produced by chris collari and ed facola written by chris collari edited by ed facola additional

[01:58:36] support and keeper of sanity is tess feifle our theme song is the track scared by perpetual stew

[01:58:42] and mr disclaimer is and just a reminder you can now support the podcast on patreon

[01:58:47] you can get all kinds of cool shit in return depending on the tier you choose we'll be

[01:58:51] offering everything from ad free episodes producer credits exclusive access and inclusive

[01:58:55] merch so go sign up for a patreon at scared all the time podcast.com don't worry all scaredy

[01:59:01] cats welcome no part of the show can be reproduced anywhere without permission copyright astonishing

[01:59:06] legends production night we are in this together together together

[01:59:10] together