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Billion-dollar doughnut: The dreams and downfalls of the gonzo lottery rush
[Pyramid of Biscuits]
Illustration: Jon Estrada
"A
few hundred specific people have been on my mind since the Great
Powerball Rush of early 2016. We met one afternoon in the middle of
nowhere and shared our deepest hopes and dreams, along with roughly two
hours and a few dollars we’ll never get back. . .
A cowboy with a guitar and an amp stood outside and belted Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places.” People smiled and laughed—surely at this ludicrous moment that all of our lives had somehow come to—and a few tapped a foot and sang along.
Inside the bar, which was arted-up with dollar bills stapled to the walls, a crowd of regulars squeezed into the smoky back room to kinda watch football, but mostly to peek out at the mob of encroachers. I imagined the influx of new miners to tiny towns during the California Gold Rush, and would-be oilers flooding into Williston, North Dakota, more recently.
Lottery rushers are a tad different. They bring no particular skills to the table, no promise to dig or drill or get dirty, just a smiley willingness to stand patiently and fork over a little cash in exchange for a billion dollars, thank you very much.
While eyeballing the peculiar economic logic of line-standers, locals drank bottles of Bud Light and stacked shot glasses on the table and, what the hell, shared in the dream: “I’ll have another beer and two Quick Picks,” . .
While eyeballing the peculiar economic logic of line-standers, locals drank bottles of Bud Light and stacked shot glasses on the table and, what the hell, shared in the dream: “I’ll have another beer and two Quick Picks,” said a stout, gray-headed guy to the bartender, who doubled as the lottery clerk. Other residents didn’t partake in the draw, instead sizing up line-standers as particularly prime consumers. A few entrepreneurial jewelry makers set up shop on a table between the two lines outside, and down the road, Littlefield resident Kimberly Cazier hosted a curbside yard sale.
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She wore a floppy sun hat and the irrepressible smile of one who’d just come into some cash. “I live up the road a ways, but I saw all these people and thought, let’s move the sale down here, right?” Within minutes of unpacking her clothes and furniture, she sold an automatic-lift lounge chair and ottoman. Ca-ching. “It’s against my religion to gamble,” she said as she straightened two Books of Mormon on her table, each tagged for $2. “I’m not really even tempted ... What’s the jackpot up to now, anyway?”
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