Bob Carson

Using horse races to select the lottery numbers is not science fiction — it is historical fact. In 1894, lotteries in the United States were outlawed in every state. Lotteries did not disappear; they merely went underground for seventy years and operated under terms like “the policy,” “bolita” or “the numbers.” The most popular bet of illegal lotteries was a three number combination called “the gig.” The winning numbers would appear in the newspaper the day after the bets were collected. The most common method of selecting the numbers for “the gig” came from horse race results.

It has been a bit of a struggle to get the masses to see the wisdom of choosing harness racing as the gambling game of choice. Maybe we can nudge them towards harness racing by bringing back “the gig.” Perhaps we can get lottery commissions to use our numbers. The major concept behind this idea is simple; watching a harness race is more exciting than watching numbered ping pong balls being vacuumed up a plastic tube.

Lotteries are a ridiculously poor gamble; they seem to be a tax on people who do not understand math. Lottery players pick a group of numbers out of the air or off of a license plate and then wait for their money to disappear like snowflakes in the Serengeti.

Autumn Schmidt graphic

In the typical Pick 6 form of State Lottos, 6 numbers are drawn from 49 possible numbers. If the 6 numbers on your ticket match the numbers drawn, you win. The order in which the numbers are drawn does not matter. The odds of being the jackpot winner in this common form of lottery are approximately 1 in 14 million (13,983,816 to be exact). If you purchase a single lottery ticket every week, you can expect to win the lottery once every quarter-million years. This is a good bet compared to the Mega Millions multi-state lottery odds — which offers odds over twelve times as long.

Not only are lottery tickets a very, very bad investment — they are very, very boring. Lottery tickets offer the same entertainment value as watching your living room carpet grow. Lottery players buy pieces of paper and wait for ping-pong balls to pop up. Most people don’t even watch the ping-ponging, they just wait for the report of the vacuumed numbers that vacuumed up their investment.

Harness racing could offer lottery commissions an opportunity to spice up their game. We could give the lottery people a chance at rejuvenating a boring (although amazingly prosperous) game. We could give the multitude of television stations that broadcast a multitude of lottery drawing programs a chance to fill the screen with some actual entertainment.

The idea is simple. Everything that enthralls the lottery world will remain the same — the only thing that will change is the method of selecting the winning numbers. Harness racing should hustle to become the “gig” of the new millennium. Horse races will determine the winning number combination of the most recent lottery. There are plenty of ways the numbers can be selected, plenty of ways our numbers can be used: one number per race, six races, one race determines all the numbers, the first two places, etc.

The exact structure of how to use our horse races for number selection may vary, (probably a large data base of archived races where one race is selected at random) but the underlining concept is clear. A horse race will become the vehicle for random number selection. A horse race offers something that can be talked about, debated, watched, cheered for, and reviewed. Ticket holders will at least get something that offers a little drama for a lottery investment.

Let’s look at this proposal from the Lottery Commission perspective. What do they get out of this new twist on their old game? Several things. First, it would not deteriorate the good thing they have going. Their core customer cares about numbers, they do not care about the selection process. Second, the horse race angle would give Lottery Commissions a new promotional angle to sell their product, a gimmick to draw new customers. Third, the additional drawing of the archived race will give an additional level for drama.

There are other reasons for Lottery Commissions to consider an alliance with the harness race selection process. The Lottery Commissions and television stations could make a real show out of the number selection; first, a drawing to select the race, then the actual tape of the race will be shown and analyzed. This would give lottery players a smidgen of entertainment for their investment.

This would not require a merger of the harness racing and lottery industries. Harness racing just happens to have thousands and thousands of archived races, each with clearly visual numbers, each race in a tidy two-minute increment. Harness racing offers an excellent and compelling delivery system of the random numbers that lottery players require.

What does harness racing get? Exposure.

Every time the quivering masses are poised to find the magic numbers, millions of people would find themselves watching horses with numbers trot around the track.

The people with losing lottery tickets (this includes everyone who purchased a lottery ticket) could now have the added dimensions of second-guessing and conspiracy theories.

Losing lottery players could now moan, “If number six had only run a little faster, I would have won!” or “If number three had fallen down, I would have won!” or “If the race would have stopped half way through, I would have won!” We do this all the time in horse racing. Conspiracy theorists would smugly opine, “That race was fixed.” Despite the obvious fact that no one in the universe had a clue as to which race was to be selected.

What fun! Complaining about horses, drivers, and trainers — entities with ears instead of ping-pong balls. Soon, people with brains might begin wagering on entities with ears.

Their odds would increase dramatically.