Scratch-Off Your Name On The Pool

(I’ve recently been promoted from cashier to the customer service desk, where all lottery tickets and tobacco products are sold. The coworker training me has just stepped away when a middle-aged woman comes up to the counter and is staring at the scratch-off tickets.)

Customer: “Give me twenty $5 scratchers, please. I don’t care which kind, just give me a variety.”

(She opens up a thick envelope full of cash and gives me a $100 bill. I tear off two each of the ten different games we sell and give them to her, wishing her luck. She takes a quarter out of her purse, moves to the end of the counter, and starts scratching off all her tickets, throwing the losers away and setting aside a winner. She holds it out to me silently and I scan it through the machine.)

Me: “Wow, you won $50!”

Customer: “Okay, give me ten more $5 tickets.”

(I’m surprised but I do as she asks. She scratches off all of those, too, wins $20, and uses it for more tickets. This continues twice more until she has no more winners and no more tickets. She slams down the stack of losers, yells ‘d*** it!’ and walks away with nothing. My coworker is returning from break just as she’s leaving.)

Coworker: “Was that the scratcher lady? Awesome, your first encounter!”

(My coworker reaches under the counter and grabs a little notepad and pencil.)

Coworker: “How much cash did she give you?”

Me: “Well, she won a few times but she gave me $100 that first time. What’s her deal?”

Coworker: *excitedly writing in the pad* “Until a few months ago, she didn’t come in here much. But then, one day, she won $10,000 from a scratch-off ticket!”

Me: “Wow, that’s pretty cool. So I guess she’s trying for more, huh?”

Coworker: “Yeah, you could say that. She does this a few times a week and every time she goes through all the winners until she’s lost it all. We’ve been keeping a running tally and had a pool going over when she quits. I bet on 2,000 but got eliminated a long time ago. Let’s see…” *looking at the notepad* “Of the $10,000 she won, she’s now spent $9,200 of it on more tickets!”

(By the time she stopped showing up months later, everyone in the pool had been eliminated, because no one came close to guessing that she’d spend over $13,000 on scratch-off tickets without bringing home a single winner.)

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