Sunday, March 05, 2006

The Losers are Winners or visa versa

I think every big organization feel they are entitled to at least one big mistake. Do a big innovative gamble, and if it works good for them (which they will be sure and claim credit for) and if it fails, what the hell, no big thing, sweep it under the rug, and charge the lost to the consumers.

That is about what happened when Coke replaced their original drink with something new. First they lost millions, probably billions – then they saw their error and even made a big thing about bringing back Classic Coke and quietly doing away with the New Coke. To pay for that costly executive mistake I’m would bet that everyone under the executive level that made the decision paid for it one way or the other.

Now, I feel the Georgia Lottery has just made their allotted costly mistake. They replaced Lotto South with Win For Life. If you win the Win For Life game you will receive $1000 for life, your life, your children or spouse not included.

Up to this point I have played the lottery ever week – 5 bucks, which most of the time is money thrown away, but at times I win. The most I have won is about $250. But most of the time, if I win is between $10 and $20. I think in 2005, after losing most and winning some, I ended up in the red less than $40. Not bad for a year of reckless money tossing.
But of course, the whole exercise is to win and win big. And at my age it is the joy of having a big amount to pass on to my children.

With my fragile cardio system I think I am living on borrowed time anyway, so if I do win for life, that could possibly be as little as $1000 take-home.

I can not see the elderly getting too worked over the new Win-for-Life game…. They know they might get a limited amount back. I haven’t seen the statistics but I would speculate that us elderly and the poor are the two main groups that play the lottery. My group just might pull out of this one.

So, lets speculate and say during the honeymoon of the public and Win-For-Life maybe up to twenty people win while it is still hot. If my figures are correct, that would be over a million bucks a year that will have to paid off for a while.

Then the executives over the Georgia Lottery looks at the figures and see they are paying out a million yearly but presently they are getting that money back, people are not playing it as much, the old farts have bailed. So, the executives might decide to drop Win-For-Life. But, even if they do drop it, they still have a contract with the 50 winners, so of course, the millions given to the previous game will have to be deducted from the winnings of the current games…. And in that case the jackpot wouldn’t be as big as it could be, so sells might not be as healthy.

So, then who loses? The lost is not absorbed in the Georgia Lottery’s executives’ salaries as it should be, but the lost is past on to less educational aids and scholarships. That is what the money in Georgia Lotteries are earmarked for.

So, if you decrease the Hope Scholarship less people will be able to go to college, so there will be a shortage of the technical and educated people to deal with problems of the future.

Yep, no doubt about it, the State of Georgia will implode all because of the wrong decision on what kind of lottery to entice the suckers with.

No comments: