I Haven't Won the Lottery (Hal Cohen)

  Because everyone needs a diversion

  Hal Cohen -- World News Trust

  March 7, 2009 -- Like most of you, I have never won the lottery.  I do not know how this sad circumstance has come to pass (astronomical odds notwithstanding).  For many years I wrote letters to then-Governor Pataki, telling him that his lottery machine was broken because it kept picking the wrong (as in not mine) numbers. 

  After receiving numerous assurances from the Governor, his Inspector General, the Lottery Commission, and Ralph Bolmeister (the man who checks to ensure the machine is properly calibrated), I stopped blaming government error.  Still, how was it possible that I had never won?  I had assurances that my numbers were “lucky,” though I’m beginning to rethink the term “fortune cookie.”

  Eventually, I filed suit against the local Chinese restaurant for consistently providing me the wrong numbers and yet advertising them as lucky.  That lawsuit was dismissed because the restaurant purchased the fortune cookies in good faith and therefore were not liable for the misinformation.

  I subsequently sued the company that produced the fortune cookies.  This suit proved successful at first.  However, on appeal, the award was reduced from the $57 million that I expected to win to the $5 that I actually spent on tickets.  A second appeal left me with not just zero dollars, but a legal bill of several thousand.  I offered to settle this bill with a lottery ticket potentially worth 145 million dollars, but the lawyers declined.

  Are they gonna be sorry. . .

  Hal Cohen is editor and publisher of Mollynyc.com