Published: Thursday, November 29, 2012
By Joe Amarante, Register Staff jamarante@ctcentral.com / Twitter: @joeammo
Amid the small talk and big lines for the $550 million Powerball drawing Wednesday, a Connecticut voice sounded a warning about the social costs of the lottery, based on his own experience. Former lottery retailer Adam Osmond of Farmington urges dreamers to “keep in mind the dark side of gambling addiction, and the fact that most lottery winnings are very small, and the fact that a small percentage of the people in the state are responsible (for) the majority of the lottery sales — the poor, the minority and compulsive gamblers. ... And a lot of store owners.” Osmond said he got in trouble for his own problem gambling, but won’t talk about that in detail, out of concern for his wife and three daughters. “My store became one of the top (for) store lottery sales in the state, and almost all the sales (were) mine,” he wrote in an email. “All you need to see is my store’s sales before me and after me, and there are many store owners just like me who are still gambling.” Osmond, 45, has created an online database of winners from the past 14 years at www.ctlotterywinners.org based on information he’s been able to collect via Freedom of Information filings. And then he matches data from other sources, such as the IRS, to draw conclusions about lottery players. A long 2009 analysis of gambling effects in the state showed, among other things, a move in popularity from weekly Lotto to Powerball and scratch-off tickets these days. It also reported findings of a survey showing rates of problem gambling “are much higher in the more urbanized counties of Hartford and New Haven.” Connecticut Lottery spokeswoman Linda Tarnowski said, “The Lottery partners with responsible gaming experts on a variety of projects and programs that prevent problem gambling and to educate on available resources for help.” Osmond said he hasn’t gambled in four years and has testified against gambling expansion. He said the data support his points about lottery sellers and the people who gamble most. Lottery officials responded to his requests only after FOI complaints, he said. “It’s huge, huge data. ... Fourteen years of records.” Anyone who hits a lottery ticket for more than $599 has to redeem it at one of four locations statewide, and fill out their information. No street addresses are available, but names, amounts, stores and ZIP codes are public (some of which is also on the lottery website). “But the problem is, they (on the lottery site) only put in the big winners (over $10,000),” he said, “and only the last two years. Mine is searchable by name, ZIP code, by store.” Osmond produced a map of Connecticut lottery winners from 1998 to 2010 that shows more winners per 100 residents in urban areas, where incomes are lower. His analysis shows 65 percent of lottery winners (and by inference, players in general) are below the state’s median income. “The poorest ZIP codes are the highest players,” he said. Today, Osmond is an accountant who also sells accounting software for gas stations and convenience stores. He said when the lottery jackpot “gets this high, everybody plays. But most people who play (normaly) are either minority poor or people addicted to gambling. You’ll see the names repeated a lot in that database.” And those folks probably aren’t winning as much as they bet. “Everybody thinks they’re going to win $500 million. But most of the winnings are very small, and those people, they spend a lot of money to get to that.” He has advice for anyone who thinks they might have a problem. “Get help. ... This (gambling) is one of the secrets that you’ll keep quiet. It’s not like any other addiction where you have signs. People with alcohol, you can smell it on them, drugs you can see. But gambling has no signs. It’s a hidden addiction.”
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2012/11/28/news/doc50b6e8e79b205587687708.txt
http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2011/11/who-won-the-lottery-now-you-ca.html
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