His attitude immediately changed once the tickets printed. I gave in to his tantrum and hurried over to sell him seven Mega Millions tickets. 'Anyone gonna wait on me?' I asked the man to wait a moment, and he slapped the counter and grunted. I was moving as fast as I could when a man yelled: 'Excuse me?' I turned around and saw him leaning next to the lottery station. One night, when I was the only person working the register, I got slammed. But while other customers could be snippy and rude, lottery players were brutal. The manager reminded me that cashiers need to have thick skin-people tend to be verbally abusive toward people in this line of work. Another blurted out, 'They hire idiots here' when I made a mistake.

'God, can't they hire someone who knows what they're doing?' one woman exploded. While I tried to master the lottery station, some customers were patient and helpful-but the majority were exasperated and rude. It's not like I'm some rich kid who had his nose turned up: I grew up middle class in suburban Pittsburgh, and my mom bought a ticket every week. Doing so demanded a fundamental understanding of the lottery, which I did not have. In Kentucky, the lottery slogan is: 'Somebody's gotta win, might as well be you.'ĭuring my first shift, I was nervous as I was given a 30-second tutorial on operating the lottery station.

Or, as John Oliver joked on a November episode of Last Week Tonight, ' Americans spent more on the lottery than they did on America.' That's more money than Americans dished out for movie tickets, music, porn, the NFL, Major League Baseball, and video games combined. I saw the lottery as state-run gambling with unbeatable odds, a government monopoly that raked in $70 billion nationwide in sales last year. Sure, I understood the fantasy of hitting it big, who doesn't? But holding a ticket while waiting for numbers to be read on TV or scratching off an instant game didn't seem particularly enjoyable. When I started working at the gas station this past April, I didn't understand how playing the lottery could be considered fun. I am neither a believer nor an addict, but I'm nowhere near the lottery skeptic I used to be.

But then he matched 16 and scraped off the prize-$100. Harry continued scratching and cursed when the number turned out to be 31.

We'd met at the gas station where I work, one of Pittsburgh's busiest, and were now sitting at a small pizza place nearby that also sells lottery tickets. Harry's blue eyes filled with child-like excitement.

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