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American Morning

Lotto Lunacy

Aired December 30, 2002 - 08:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Who hasn't fantasized about winning a lottery? All it takes is a dollar and a dream, right? When Jack Whittaker of West Virginia won that smashing record Powerball prize last week, it struck a nerve with our senior analyst Jeff Greenfield. He thinks there is an absurd approach to these million dollar jackpots, and he joins us with his take.
You're just upset you didn't win.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: No, that is the question that gets my goat, not because I didn't win, but it does reveals something I think amazingly crazy about this. It starts with this, let's say the lottery is $10 million. Most people would not play it. If there was a line two minutes long, they would pass it by, right? Goes to $100 million or $300 million, people drive across state lines and wait in line three hours and spend $200 because that only reduces the odds to 100 million to one.

So my question is, you know, for most Americans winning $10 million would be a life changing experience, even network television people, it would be a life-changing experience. What is it? There is nothing rational about this. I think it's a fairly simple notion, that at some level, when you can put yourself in the position of possibly winning $100 million, the odds are about the same whether you play or not, and ordinary people win it, it makes people nuts.

I absolutely believe the only thing that makes people crazier than sex is money, particularly the prospect, or what seems to be the prospect of winning an impossibly large sum of money on a whim. It's the reverse of being struck by lightning. There are people afraid of being struck by lightning, even though the odds are pretty small. This is sort of the good way of being struck by lightning and makes people do things, that if they thought 30 seconds, they wouldn't do it, waiting in line three hours to buy a ticket when your odds are 100 million to one and you wouldn't do it if it's only 10 million -- completely nuts.

ZAHN: Point well taken. Now you also think the that media plays a role in this hype, in the absurdity of this.

GREENFIELD: Right, and this actually is a somewhat more serious one. When you think about the fact we are a nation with several million compulsive gamblers, and when you think about the people at the lower end of the wage scale who will spend $40 or $50 a week, now what happens is a huge line outside some convenience store. We send correspondents to interview these people. There is only one question we ever ask. ZAHN: What are you going to do with the money when you win?

GREENFIELD: Right. One day, a brave correspondent, braver than I, is going to go up to these people, and say how much do you spend on this? $50 a week? You realize if you put -- if you spent $1 a week on the lottery and put the $50 a week in a bank, in four years, you would win the lottery, that is to say you'd have, I don't know what the compound interest is, you would have $15,000 or $20,000.

ZAHN: Or could be a million or 10 million or 300 million.

GREENFIELD: And it really gets back, I think, to my first, somewhat dyspeptic, uncharitable point, that at some level, money drives people crazy.

Mark Twain wrote a short story called "The Man Who Corrupted Hadlyberg (ph)." I'm doing this for memory -- I could be wrong.

ZAHN: You're hardly ever wrong about this stuff.

GREENFIELD: In my day, there was a book called "The Magic Christian," and iconic book of the '60s, and it featured kind of a billionaire sadist named Grandguy Grand (ph), and one of the things, if my memory serves me right, was to take a whole bunch of money and mix it in a vat of extremely unpleasant material, not something to be discussed on a morning show, and watch people jump into the vat to get the money.

In a less vile way, I guess, this is what the lottery is. I have to say, a lot of people make this point, that the fact that the great majority of states promote this is something that we have not thought enough about.

ZAHN: But there are states, like the state of Georgia, who would argue that this has been a boon to their educational system.

GREENFIELD: Georgia is a state that has done it right, in that they have taken a human weakness, this lust for instant, unearned money, which is what this is, and they said, OK, we are going to tap into this, but we're going to make sure that I think in Georgia with the Hope Scholarships, is that what that is, everybody with a B average in high school gets to go to college. At least the states don't use the lottery money to make up for other money, because they don't want to tax people. That at least takes this human weakness and does something good with it.

But the next time I see one of these stories, and you know we are going to do it, because we all do it.

ZAHN: Because we're human beings.

GREENFIELD: Somebody will win $100 million and some poor sucker is going to think that could be me, and they're going to take $50 a week out of the grocery money every week, and they might as well set fire to it.

ZAHN: So have you ever played the lottery?

GREENFIELD: Yes. Ask me if I've ever waited in line more than a minute.

ZAHN: Have you?

GREENFIELD: No. There's a very smart financial adviser I know -- not mine -- my wife asked him, trying to dissuade me of this habit, she said, you don't buy tickets? He said, sure. I mean, it could happen to me. But at the point at which you take this weakness, this sort of little tiny thing, and you turn it into something that really takes money you can't afford to lose, and you spend three hours of your time waiting on -- I keep coming back to it, because now it's worth it.

ZAHN: You could be reading a good book standing in line.

GREENFIELD: You could be doing a lot of things. You could be going out and getting a part-time job.

ZAHN: Bah humbug.

GREENFIELD: But I agree -- it's not bah humbug in this case, I think. It is really at least recognized what I'm saying, that what it is, it is a human folly, a human foible to believe you are going to win it.

ZAHN: Tell that to Mr. Whittaker. I love what he's doing. He's doing the tithing for three churches, giving out $17 million, buying a helicopter, which is probably the only frivolous thing he's announced he's doing.

GREENFIELD: I'm just worried about the 5,000 more people who are going to buy tickets they can't afford next week.

ZAHN: Point well taken.

Happy New Year.

GREENFIELD: Happy New Year.

ZAHN: Thanks for dropping by.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 30, 2002 - 08:35   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Who hasn't fantasized about winning a lottery? All it takes is a dollar and a dream, right? When Jack Whittaker of West Virginia won that smashing record Powerball prize last week, it struck a nerve with our senior analyst Jeff Greenfield. He thinks there is an absurd approach to these million dollar jackpots, and he joins us with his take.
You're just upset you didn't win.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: No, that is the question that gets my goat, not because I didn't win, but it does reveals something I think amazingly crazy about this. It starts with this, let's say the lottery is $10 million. Most people would not play it. If there was a line two minutes long, they would pass it by, right? Goes to $100 million or $300 million, people drive across state lines and wait in line three hours and spend $200 because that only reduces the odds to 100 million to one.

So my question is, you know, for most Americans winning $10 million would be a life changing experience, even network television people, it would be a life-changing experience. What is it? There is nothing rational about this. I think it's a fairly simple notion, that at some level, when you can put yourself in the position of possibly winning $100 million, the odds are about the same whether you play or not, and ordinary people win it, it makes people nuts.

I absolutely believe the only thing that makes people crazier than sex is money, particularly the prospect, or what seems to be the prospect of winning an impossibly large sum of money on a whim. It's the reverse of being struck by lightning. There are people afraid of being struck by lightning, even though the odds are pretty small. This is sort of the good way of being struck by lightning and makes people do things, that if they thought 30 seconds, they wouldn't do it, waiting in line three hours to buy a ticket when your odds are 100 million to one and you wouldn't do it if it's only 10 million -- completely nuts.

ZAHN: Point well taken. Now you also think the that media plays a role in this hype, in the absurdity of this.

GREENFIELD: Right, and this actually is a somewhat more serious one. When you think about the fact we are a nation with several million compulsive gamblers, and when you think about the people at the lower end of the wage scale who will spend $40 or $50 a week, now what happens is a huge line outside some convenience store. We send correspondents to interview these people. There is only one question we ever ask. ZAHN: What are you going to do with the money when you win?

GREENFIELD: Right. One day, a brave correspondent, braver than I, is going to go up to these people, and say how much do you spend on this? $50 a week? You realize if you put -- if you spent $1 a week on the lottery and put the $50 a week in a bank, in four years, you would win the lottery, that is to say you'd have, I don't know what the compound interest is, you would have $15,000 or $20,000.

ZAHN: Or could be a million or 10 million or 300 million.

GREENFIELD: And it really gets back, I think, to my first, somewhat dyspeptic, uncharitable point, that at some level, money drives people crazy.

Mark Twain wrote a short story called "The Man Who Corrupted Hadlyberg (ph)." I'm doing this for memory -- I could be wrong.

ZAHN: You're hardly ever wrong about this stuff.

GREENFIELD: In my day, there was a book called "The Magic Christian," and iconic book of the '60s, and it featured kind of a billionaire sadist named Grandguy Grand (ph), and one of the things, if my memory serves me right, was to take a whole bunch of money and mix it in a vat of extremely unpleasant material, not something to be discussed on a morning show, and watch people jump into the vat to get the money.

In a less vile way, I guess, this is what the lottery is. I have to say, a lot of people make this point, that the fact that the great majority of states promote this is something that we have not thought enough about.

ZAHN: But there are states, like the state of Georgia, who would argue that this has been a boon to their educational system.

GREENFIELD: Georgia is a state that has done it right, in that they have taken a human weakness, this lust for instant, unearned money, which is what this is, and they said, OK, we are going to tap into this, but we're going to make sure that I think in Georgia with the Hope Scholarships, is that what that is, everybody with a B average in high school gets to go to college. At least the states don't use the lottery money to make up for other money, because they don't want to tax people. That at least takes this human weakness and does something good with it.

But the next time I see one of these stories, and you know we are going to do it, because we all do it.

ZAHN: Because we're human beings.

GREENFIELD: Somebody will win $100 million and some poor sucker is going to think that could be me, and they're going to take $50 a week out of the grocery money every week, and they might as well set fire to it.

ZAHN: So have you ever played the lottery?

GREENFIELD: Yes. Ask me if I've ever waited in line more than a minute.

ZAHN: Have you?

GREENFIELD: No. There's a very smart financial adviser I know -- not mine -- my wife asked him, trying to dissuade me of this habit, she said, you don't buy tickets? He said, sure. I mean, it could happen to me. But at the point at which you take this weakness, this sort of little tiny thing, and you turn it into something that really takes money you can't afford to lose, and you spend three hours of your time waiting on -- I keep coming back to it, because now it's worth it.

ZAHN: You could be reading a good book standing in line.

GREENFIELD: You could be doing a lot of things. You could be going out and getting a part-time job.

ZAHN: Bah humbug.

GREENFIELD: But I agree -- it's not bah humbug in this case, I think. It is really at least recognized what I'm saying, that what it is, it is a human folly, a human foible to believe you are going to win it.

ZAHN: Tell that to Mr. Whittaker. I love what he's doing. He's doing the tithing for three churches, giving out $17 million, buying a helicopter, which is probably the only frivolous thing he's announced he's doing.

GREENFIELD: I'm just worried about the 5,000 more people who are going to buy tickets they can't afford next week.

ZAHN: Point well taken.

Happy New Year.

GREENFIELD: Happy New Year.

ZAHN: Thanks for dropping by.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com