Ultra Lotto 6/58
You’ll know people’s interest in a lotto draw by the way their leaders talk about it. Consider the 6/58 Ultra Lotto jackpot, which has attracted the attention of even Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
The presidential daughter placed a bet for yesterday’s draw (this was written before the results were out) hoping to win the jackpot prize that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office said could reach P885 million.
Gamblers do not expect to lose and while Sara may not be a gambler in the strictest sense of the word, she carries the same mindset. So before the draw she already thought about who would get the “balato” if she wins. She was joking, of course, when she said she would give Duterte political nemesis, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, P121 million for his legal fees.
Sara’s bet amounted to a little more than P2,000 that she borrowed from her personal aide and a friend. She gave that information away when she said her personal aide would be given P40 million for lending her the amount.
But while the young Duterte made light of her act of placing an Ultra Lotto bet, public interest on the matter is serious. Which shows you how the form of gambling that the PCSO conceived to counter the illegal numbers game “masiao” is turning out to be a hit in the sense that millions of patrons are now addicted to it.
“Masiao” is not gone, of course. The illegal numbers game remains popular especially in the Visayas and Mindanao and so too “jueteng” in Luzon. The difference is that law enforcers are not as obsessed now with going after illegal gambling as they are with the illegal drug trade.
But gambling, like the use of illegal drugs, is addictive, which makes it just as bad. The website sg.get.com even posted an article titled, “Top 5 Reasons Why Gambling is Always a Bad Idea”: the probability of winning is embarrassingly low, it breeds greed, you may do incredibly stupid things, it can tear your life apart and you can use your money in a better way.
Yet logic always loses to the belief in luck and the preference for instant wealth over getting a windfall through hard work. The odds in winning the Ultra Lotto are actually one in several millions. The gamblers’ retort: But what if that “one” is me? There you go.