DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997              TAG: 9704100001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B14  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   36 lines

LOTTERY PLAY RESPONSIBLY

Virginia State Lottery officials should be commended for last week's ``Play Responsibly'' public-relations campaign. They began the don't-hock-the-house advertising blitz when the Big Game's jackpot soared to $77 million.

The Lottery's message was a simple one: Go ahead a buy a ticket, or two, and take a chance at winning the jackpot, but play responsibly. Remember, the odds of winning are one in 53 million.

Yes, you read that right, 53,000,000-to-1. If the size of the jackpot was enough to make you swoon, the length of the odds should have been enough to make you pass out.

In fact, this six-state mega-game has odds so long that your chance of winning is roughly equal to the likelihood that Jack Kent Cooke named you as his sole heir.

But that didn't stop Virginians, lots of them, from buying Big Game tickets. In the Old Dominion, 5.5 million tickets were sold for the Big Game last week. On Friday, the day of the drawing, a record 3.8 million were sold.

Note that lottery officials are always careful to refer to tickets sold, not the number of players, since so many lottery patrons foolishly believe that by buying multiple tickets they significantly increase their chances of winning.

Mathematically speaking, buying 50 tickets in a game with 53,000,000-to-1 odds increases your chances of winning from virtually impossible to utterly hopeless.

The Lottery folks were right to issue a stern reminder against being seduced by dreams of instant riches.

They ought to make the ``Play Responsibly'' motto part of their regular sales pitch for Lotto.

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