Odds Are the Lottery Will Be Well-Received

“The urge to gamble,” Heywood Broun once said, “is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.”

Broun’s tongue, of course, had long since paid the mortgage on his cheek. Amazing, though, how many people took him seriously. And still do.

Baudelaire didn’t care. Predating Broun, as ringleader of the 19th-Century “decadents,” the Paris poet declared, “Life has only one great charm--gambling.” Died ill and broke, did Baudelaire. Sick transit.

And then there was the sage counsel of Julian the Jake, known to his awestruck contemporaries as The Worst Gambler in the Western World. “To wager is human,” Jake would say, after borrowing 20 ‘til payday; “to win, divine.”

An informal poll on the eve of Thursday’s initial Great California Lottery reveals an underlying sympathy with the philosophy of the semimortal Jake. By extension, there is overwhelming approval of the lottery itself, for a variety of reasons.

Of 25 questionnaires distributed, 16 of them hither and nine yon, 21 were returned, not counting the one that was red-penciled “Folded, muted and spindilated.” The responder--single, mordant and dyslexic--was vehement in his/her (he/she didn’t say) condemnation of the lottery, on the grounds that it is a “fraud, scam, snare and delusion.”

Of the 21 unspindilated replies, however, only four were against the lottery; 17 in favor.

How scientific was the poll, Johnny? Perhaps not a true cross section of the community. Very few, in fact, were angry, or even annoyed. On the other hand, most were reluctant to use their names. (Many gamble; curiously, most are reluctant to admit it publicly.)

The questionnaires, then, asked only sex and age (“over and under,” in keeping with a gambling ploy popular over the last 20 years). Twelve were over 40, nine under. No pushes.

As for “sex,” 11 respondents admitted to being male, nine female, one “not sure” and one “frequently.”

Eat your heart out, George Gallup.

To authenticate the whole tsimmes, three prominent L.A. psychologists were polled by phone, of whom 2 1/2 were in favor of the lottery.

While we had them on the line for free, the psychologists were asked why people gamble in the first place. Respondents also were gently prodded as to when, where, how and why.

Conclusion: The seeds of the California Lottery were sown long, long ago in a place far, far away.

On the morning after the first snowfall in a village on the Hudson, a dozen young boys would assemble on a vacant, weedy plateau known only as “The Fields.” No one called for them or telephoned. They knew.

A line was scuffed across the virgin snow, across which one dared not tread. The boys smacked their mittens, both for circulation and to make sure that the pennies were still in them. (There were no pockets in the “snowsuits” of the era.)

A penny was the world in those days, good for a footlong licorice strip studded with little candy dots.

After ritual argument over a complicated handicap system, the small boys would pack snowballs, take their places on the line and heave their hungry guts out.

Winner--usually a red-haired endomorph named Harry--would mitten all the pennies and lead the pack to Honig’s candy store. Sometimes he’d even share.

Thirty miles to the south, recalled a second respondent, another gang would gather in an alley off Morris Avenue in the Bronx to pitch pennies--closest to the wall took the lot.

A boy called Freddy would cry when he lost, which was more than somewhat, and would get most of his coins back. Freddy is now senior vice president of a toothpaste company. (Not yet, ninny. The moral always comes at the end.)

A thousand miles to the west, yet another band of youngsters shot marbles on a frozen lawn in suburban Illinois. “Hitsies”--plinking one marble with another--would amass all the aggies. “Spansies”--plopping one marble within a hand-span of another--would win the opponent’s prized shooter.

“Biggest paws would prevail,” said a pollee. “A girl named Nancy, who looked like she was born in a tree, would pick us off every year. Great future as a pianist, but she broke her thumb pole-vaulting. Can’t even hitchhike now.”

Out in Arizona, a toddler learned the rudiments of poker by watching the odometer of her father’s car. “Like, 22737 was two pair, etc. Straights, sure, but no flushes, so we made up a flush substitute called the ‘pal,’ for palindrome (34943). The trick was to get the highest hand before we got home.

“I still play it on the way to work, in my own car, and I get an unreasonable charge when the odometer comes up, say, 44444. Nobody wants to car pool with me.”

On the West Coast, affluent California kids played Monopoly in the sun, kicking in $2 or $3 apiece, all won by whoever wiped out the rest. A copy runner at The Times compared the habitual winners with his own lot and sighed. “My Armageddon,” he said, “was Marvin Gardens.”

Why did he gamble then? “For the challenge.” Another responder: “It’s easier than writing a novel.” Another: “It’s just fun. How can you explain it? Hope springs eternal.” “I gamble,” explained a fourth person, “to alter the existing pattern of life. Win or lose, it’s exciting.”

“Sure,” said Sherman Oaks psychologist J Bartell, “the average individual will take a chance--to a degree. On vacation, maybe, or at a sociable bridge party. Everybody’s interested in getting something for nothing.

“Some people, though--more and more, I’ve noticed--get into it because of stress, like people who play the numbers. And of course the more stress, the less logic; the less logic, the more one forgets the odds.

“Most people will take a little flyer, though. They rationalize that the dollar they spent on the raffle is a buck they’d spend for a couple of candy bars. And it gives them pleasure.

“What have they done? They’ve bought themselves a daydream.”

Does Bartell gamble? “Yes. I compete at target shooting, and if the events are in Las Vegas, I’ll play blackjack and poker, within my own limits. I do it because (1) it’s entertaining, and (2) I can alter the odds with my skill level.

“I started gambling at 10 or 12, I guess. Pitching coins. I was very good at it.”

And the California Lottery? “That’s a hard decision,” Bartell said, “but I would say I’m for it. Provided the Mafia doesn’t get into it--and I don’t think they will--there’ll be a lot of money going for a lot of good.”

“I’m definitely for it (the lottery),” said a respondent to the questionnaire.

“In 1985, you can afford a dollar, even if you dig ditches.

“A sixth of your dollar is going toward running the lottery, which provides some jobs.

“A third is going toward improving education, making kids smart enough that they don’t have to either dig ditches or play the lottery.

“And half, or so they say, is going toward making some poor slob rich.”

The questionnaire was signed “Poor Slob.”

“I’m in favor,” said another, “because the educational system is in trouble.”

Among other pros:

“A chance is what makes life fun.”

“I don’t think it’s corrupting anybody.”

“Where else would I make that kind of money?”

“Gambling is a prerogative, not an order. The lottery provides a chance for dreamers to dream without busting their life’s savings.”

“It’s the second-oldest profession. If lotteries were good enough for Voltaire, they’re good enough for me.”

Among the antis:

“There’s enough freedom to filch and fiddle and fix in today’s society without adding a new temptation. If a 13-year-old with a correspondence course can short-circuit military computer security. . . . “

“Everybody’s going to go broke.”

“I voted no to the lottery because I’m a stockholder of Hollywood Park, which opposed it. (Now I can’t wait. . . . )”

“I’m for the lottery,” said Michael Aharoni, another Valley psychologist. “People should have the freedom to choose. It’s as simple as that.

“We gamble, I think, because of wishful thinking. We hope we’re going to hit on something easy, get a big piece of the pie.

“It’s a very emotional decision--’I’m going to spend billions on cars, women.’ The fantasy elicits emotion and the emotion triggers the body movement toward, say, the craps table.

“Me? Sure I’ve gambled, ever since marbles as a kid, or matching coins along my newspaper route. I get to Las Vegas every couple of years on business, but I impose my own limit--otherwise, there goes the house.

“What obsesses me, oddly, are those million-dollar offers in the mail, the ones like Publishers Clearing House. Every one I get I carefully fill out and send. If time is money, that’s gambling. I mean, it can take 20 minutes to find the ‘secret stamp’ or whatever, paste it on, look for a postage stamp. . . .

“Remarkable, but there’s something innate in human nature. It’s called ‘greed.’ ”

It’s also called irrationality.

One of the people polled recalled the memorable era in which the Good Humor man cleverly concealed a (very) limited number of “Lucky Sticks” inside the ice-cream bars.

“I’d wait all afternoon, then wolf down that ice cream, hardly tasting it, just to see whether I had a Lucky Stick, ergo a free Good Humor.

“When I got one--about once a summer--what did I do? Savor it? Hell no! I slurped that one down, too, so fast I’d hurt my back teeth, just to see if I got another Lucky Stick. . . .”

“Bingo,” one respondent said. “I loved it! The Catholics were supposed to be against gambling, but I never saw Father Fluharty beam in the pulpit the way he did when he won a toaster!”

“We had a regular bet,” one woman wrote, “fabulous sums, on which twin really had the Toni.”

“We’d bet on anything at the office,” recalled another. “If someone was late, we’d get up a pool on the first letter of the first word he’d say when he got to work. Somebody would have A to E, another F to J. . . . Some of the letters were at a premium, since the first word was usually a cussword. An impartial judge determined the spelling of a grunt. Hey, it kept the joint alive!”

And: “I bet a New York cop $10 that the woman another cop was with in a bar was really a guy. He was, and my cop said it was the best $10 he ever spent.”

Not exactly a bet, but a tale worth retelling, is that of a young woman who won a dance marathon on a cruise ship.

“After it had gone on and on, they decided to eliminate people with blue eyes. I kept dancing. Then they called the brown-eyed people off the floor. Just a few of us left.

“Green eyes went next-to-last, leaving me!”

The respondent, of course, was a heterochromatic. You could look it up.

But back, for a last time, to why people gamble:

“Because it’s there.”

“It’s cheaper, in the long run, than a night on the town.”

“A poker game legitimizes drinking beer and staying up late.”

“Keeps the adrenaline pumping, and it’s sociable. Take the office pool. . . . “

“Peer pressure,” said Dr. Scott Fraser, of office pools. “You’ve got to be one of the boys--one of the people, as it were. Most of the time you make stupid bets.”

Partridges in peer trees aside, why do we gamble?

“It would require a couple of hours’ discourse,” said the USC professor of psychology, “and I have a class in 10 minutes.

“Basically, it revolves about the variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement. . . . If you play regularly, and get paid periodically--that’s the ‘reinforcement’--you begin chucking it away.”

Fraser, who gambles on the stock market (“It’s a bleep-bleep crap shoot”), also confessed to dropping in on casinos “if they happen to be in the area. It’s a cultural attraction.”

The casinos, he pointed out, “influence the probabilities that people will sustain their gambling by eliminating clues. By using chips, for example. If you were putting down cash, you’d realize how much you’re really throwing away. As it’s set up, it’s easy to get hooked.”

And the California Lottery?

“It’s a complicated issue,” Fraser said. “One must consider the dimensions of morality involved.

“Still, it’s a bit ludicrous to permit horse racing, to have legal gambling across the whole nation, and then make an exception for a lottery.

“On the other hand, maybe it’s a case of tempting the devil in the weaker--those with the least resistance and the fewest resources.

“But perhaps there’s a transcendent value, funneling resources which might be spent elsewhere into education. It’s difficult to separate the public weal from the public will . . . “

Somewhere, a class bell was ringing--or maybe it was just another variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement.

Ah yes, the moral, sine qua non of a piece on gambling:

Julian the Jake, The Worst Gambler of the Western World, went broke; moved overseas; had himself banned from all the casinos in Europe, mug shots and all; got himself fired on purpose from his last job, for a stake.

Bought used van with severance pay; filled it up with used paperbacks; drove as far as he could from Temptation, to a tiny town in Spain.

Set up used-book store, Julian’s Junk, where he swapped one-for-two (no Baudelaire); bought small house; opened second store, Jakes or Better; bought mansion on Costa del Sol.

Last post card: “Healthy. Happy. Itchy. Not that I’m really interested, but what’s this I hear about a California Lottery?”