By Rob Scott
LEWISBURG — Playing the lottery is like enjoying an over-the-top action movie. It’s all about the suspension of disbelief.
Everyone knows the odds are stacked against them — one in 175,000,000, one in 196,000,000 for the big money games, Mega Millions and Powerball respectively — but they play anyway, clinging to that mad hope that THIS is the winning ticket.
Author Rick Dandes, of Lewisburg, has been writing about those people for the past 10 years, listening to their stories and hoping that one day he would have one of his own to tell.
“Since it’ll all luck and fate, I believe I’m going to win some day,” he said. “In fact, I think I’m going to win tonight.”
Dandes’ new book (his second), “Lottery: A Guide to American Lotteries,” collects those stories into a single edition, coupled with the history of the game, insider information, tips and strategies.
Dandes, who is a reporter for The Daily Item, got into the lottery business when a former mentor at TV Guide — one of Dandes’ previous employers — called to say he was starting a lottery magazine and wanted Dandes to be the editor.
“I thought it was the stupidest subject for a magazine,” said Dandes, “and I knew nothing about the business. But I needed work, and I knew the boss, so I took the job.” Over the next 10 years, Dandes traveled across the country, interviewing dozens of lottery winners, including Sen. Judd Gregg, of New Hampshire, and Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, a former all-star linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys, along with plenty of not-so-famous people who had struck it rich.
“What I started enjoying, there’s always a story behind the person,” said Dandes. “Politicians, doctors, lawyers, street people, drug dealers … they all win. There is no accounting for it.”
Most lottery books try and sell people on the idea that there’s a system to playing, and if you follow it, you can win. “But those are scams … no system can predict what a bouncing ball will do the next time it bounces,” Dandes said. “I don’t believe in systems at all. If they do work, lotteries should be out of business.” He said his goal was to make an “everything you wanted to know about lotteries but never asked.”
The book’s real selling point though, he believes, is the stories. Like the Holocaust survivor who got hit by a car, survived and won a $10 million jackpot. Or the 12 struggling Oklahoma farmers, dealing with one of the worst droughts since the Great Depression, who together won $23 million. Or the California man who won two separate lotteries in the same day, taking home about $10 million.
“I want people to be able to open up to any page and be inspired and entertained and hopeful,” said Dandes. “There may be a recession, but not in the lottery business … There is an allure. The idea of putting down a dollar and perhaps becoming a millionaire has appeal to people who only have a few dollars.”
“Lottery: A Guide to American Lotteries,” published by Arthur McAllister Publishers, Inc., is available for $12.95 at amazon.com (key in “Lottery Dandes” and it comes up immediately), McAllister Books (www.amcpub.com/lottery), and may be ordered in Barnes & Noble’s bookstores.
Dandes also writes a daily blog about lottery winners around the world at www.lotterymoments.com
