Regular Gamblers Take Patronizing View of the Lottery

“That’s a long shot,” warned Angie, a 40ish, bearded man in a white knit shirt, white shorts, white sneakers and white sun visor. “A looooong shot.”

Angie threw the good-natured advice over his shoulder as he strolled by a group of fellow poker players lined up at a specially installed cashier’s window in the Normandie Club in Gardena, where the sale of California Lottery tickets had just begun to compete with five-card draw and low-ball.

Nobody was quarreling with the advice. They just weren’t listening to it. The regulars who spend their days strategically hunched over the green-felt tables in Los Angeles County’s seven legal poker clubs know that the lottery is a sucker bet compared to poker. But on Thursday, many of them seemed to want a piece of the action anyway.

“It’s a long shot but, hell, I’m gonna be buyin’ em,” said Victor Benoun, a disabled Gardena man who says he plays at the Normandie “when I can afford it.”

Benoun was one of the first players to line up for tickets at the Normandie, a small, informal, half-century-old club. He bought 10 tickets and huddled in a corner, scratching away, sounding like a poker player hoping to draw an ace. One card had two $5,000 spots. If he found another, he would win $5,000. “C’mon, $5,000,” he urged, but a winner was not forthcoming.

Another Normandie regular, John Burke of Hawthorne, said he and a friend were tailoring their play at the poker table to ensure that they would have money for lottery tickets.

“For the last hour and a half, for each hand one of us won, we took 20% and built a back line” for the lottery, Burke said, beaming as he bought 50 of the $1 tickets. “Why not? It’s using somebody else’s money. . . . Besides, it’s for a good cause. The schools need the money.”

At least the schools won. Of the 50 tickets Burke bought, only seven were winners, each paying $2, for a net loss of $36.

Contrasted with poker, the odds of winning even a moderate amount of money in the lottery are poor. For example, the odds of winning $100 in the lottery are 4,000 to 1, while the odds against being dealt five cards that form a full house--normally hard to beat--are 693 to 1.

Only 50% in Prizes

Critics also note that because of expenditures for schools and administrative overhead, only 50% of the money invested by lottery players will be returned as prize money, a figure far lower than in most forms of gambling.

“It is the worst gamble I’ve ever heard of,” said Jim Trense of North Hollywood, who was in line to buy tickets for a bartender at the Normandie Club and said he had no intention of buying tickets for himself.

“I’m about as interested in the lottery as I am in keno,” added Angie, who declined to reveal his last name and described himself as a retired man who spends most days at the Normandie, bringing along a stake of between $500 and $1,000.

Those who bet at or above Angie’s level or who make their living as gamblers are expected to sniff disdainfully at the lottery.

“My budget for lottery tickets is $1 dollar a week because, what the heck, it’s fun,” one professional blackjack player said.

‘A Perceived Edge’

“People who gamble for a living don’t have an interest in the lottery because it’s gambling,” he added. “Card counters, poker players, horse players, the way they make money is that they have a perceived edge over the crowd. . . . How much interest do bridge players have in playing a game of ‘Go Fish?’ ”

Managers of all of the county’s poker clubs obtained state permission to sell lottery tickets, but a number of them seemed unsure about the amount of interest poker players would have in the long run and said they felt forced to offer tickets to remain competitive.

“The high-stakes people probably won’t be (lottery) players, but there are more of the others--thousands of guys who play $2 poker, and if they win a hundred dollars, they’re going to put 50 of it into the lottery,” said Wilbur Duberstein, president of the California Card Club Owners Assn.

(All lottery retailers retain 5% of their lottery ticket sales as commission.)

Lotto Next Year

Some poker players said they might have more sustained enthusiasm for the lottery when a more sophisticated, computerized lotto game is approved, probably next year. Lotto lets people pick their own numbers and allows for much larger cumulative prizes.

Scoffed Barry Meadow of Sherman Oaks, who publishes a horse-racing newsletter: “All that’s gonna mean is that people who write books about how to win at lotteries will be able to sell more of their ridiculous material.”

That will not dim the eternal hopes of everyday players like Victor Benoun.

“Everybody wants to take a shot at something in life,” he said, “ ‘cause what else is there?”