Dark History - 113: A billion dollar curse: The Dark History of The Lottery

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Welcome to the Dark History podcast. Did you know that the largest Powerball jackpot ever won was a mind-blowing 2.04 billion dollars? That's the equivalent of an average American working for 30,000 years. Sounds good, but there's a dark side dating back to the Old Testament. From funding America's birth to winners finding a tragic fate, get ready to explore the shadowy past of the lottery. Get $15 off a Skylight Frame at https://www.SkylightFrame.com/DARK. Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions – and manage your money the easy way – by going to https://www.RocketMoney.com/DARKHISTORY. For big savings on cold and flu meds, plus discounts on your everyday prescriptions, go to https://www.GoodRX.com/darkhistory.  Go to https://www.ShipStation.com and use code DARKHISTORY today and sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.

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The largest power ball jackpot ever won happened on November 7, 2022 with a jackpot of 2.04 billion dollars. Now to make that money, the average American would have to work 29,620 years. But even though the odds of winning the lottery are like 300 million to one, I mean, somebody has to win, right? Surprisingly, I learned that the lottery is way, way older than we think. But there's always a dark side. Winning the lottery has led to scandals, violence, and even murder.

Baby Bucklyn, because this is a dark history of the lottery. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Hey. How are you doing today? I help you are having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Saran and I like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Look, here we believe history, it just not to be boring. I mean, yeah, it might be tragic and sometimes rarely.

It's happy, but either way, I mean, it's the truth. And it's our dark history. So all you have to do is sit back, relax, and just let me ramble because I'm going to tell you everything you need to know, okay? Also, if you're watching this over on YouTube, this is some new merch I have. I'll leave in the description box down below or you can just go to balisarean.com if you want to check out new dark history merch. Super cute. Thank you. I help you like it too. Okay, when I hear the word lottery, it automatically makes me think of that one show I'd like to watch. It's called the lottery changed my life. Do you guys remember it? I mean, is anyone else in their vintage TLC rewatch era? Because I'm deep. All right, well, anyway, it was all about people who had won the lottery and it would go on

explaining like how these winners spent their money. Most of the people went from having blue-collar jobs where they were making minimum wage to being thrown into millions of dollars, you know? And since it was like normal everyday people winning, it was very inspiring to watch. I was like, oh my God, that could be me one day. I just have to play the lottery. But it wasn't all rainbows unicorns and like happy stories about living this high life and having hot orgies on a yacht, you know?

In one episode I saw, there was this guy named Shake Spear. Yeah, I was like, really? All right, anyway, this guy's name was Abraham Shakespeare and he was from Florida. And in 2006, he had won $17 million in the Florida lottery. But before you get a little too jealous, it turns out that this money was more of a curse than a blessing.

He apparently told his brother that so many people were asking him for money that he said, quote, I'd have been better off broke and quote. Shakespeare's millions attracted the attention of a woman named Dee Dee Moore, and Dee Dee came to him and was like, oh my God, hey, I'm great with money.

Let me manage it for you. And also, I'll write a book about you. So he's like, all right, well, cut to three years later and Shakespeare, he's missing. And later, his body would be found under concrete slab at the home of GDs.

Oh, f***. Yep. So I mean, I think you could say that like winning the lottery led to Shakespeare dying. And sadly, she's not alone. There are many such cases. So this got me thinking, like, how many lottery winners have gotten murdered, right?

Does this happen all the time? Because it's probably happened all the time, right? I mean, winning the lottery, it's kind of like putting a target on your back if you publicly announce that you won all of this money. I mean, all sorts of people just seem to come out of the woodwork, but in reality, your chances of getting struck by lightning is a lot higher than winning that jackpot.

So a lot of people, they see playing the power ball is just like a waste of time and money, you know? But there's another side to the lottery that no one talks about. Like when you buy a lottery ticket, $0.35 of every dollar you spend on that ticket actually goes back into state projects. Yeah, things like building roads and even education.

So when I found that out, I was like, oh, really? Huh? So even if your odds of winning a lottery are low, I guess you can always pat yourself on the back because you're technically donating to something that helps other people, you know? But to really understand the lottery, let's start with the basics.

Well, I hope you all know what the lottery is, but it's a little more intricate than I even realized. A lottery for those who don't know was a way of like raising money by selling tickets and then giving a prize to a lucky winner who is selected at random. The legal definition of a lottery consists of three things, a prize, which is like typically money, property, or a trip. Part two is a participation part, like when you buy a surprise, which is like typically money, property or a trip. Part two is a participation part, like when you buy a ticket, which is what gives you the chance of at winning. And part three is the selection part, which legally has to be at random.

Because in order for it to be a lottery, there is no skill that makes you more likely to win. It's not like Mario Kart where you can win because you're spending all your free time playing it. It's a game of chance. People are always talking about how lotteries are rigged, but the idea has always been that anyone can win. As long as you buy a ticket, of course. I would have guessed the lottery started

in like the 1970s or maybe even the 80s, but I was quickly humbled by the internet. Not only is the lottery not in like the 1970s or maybe even the 80s, but I was quickly humbled by the internet. Not only is the lottery not new at all, I mean there is so much more to it than a big-ass pile of money. A version of the lottery actually existed in the Old Testament of the Bible where Moses said, I'm pretty sure he said that. But I guess I got to Jesus' crucified, Roman soldiers famously divided up Jesus' robe using a method called the casting of lots. And that's a Bible-y way,

like to say random selection. And from that word, lots. I guess that's where we get the name lottery. An ancient realm, Emperor's apparently used a lottery system to give away property and even enslaved people. But the first recorded lottery with a cash prize actually started for America. We did it! USA.

USA. If you want to be technical, the tickets were sold in England, but the money that was raised went to this fun start-up company called America. Cold and flu season is definitely here and it's coming for me. It's watching me, it's right behind me. Oh, God. Everyone's sniffling and coughing and I'm like, stay away. I do not have time to get sick. Does anyone, especially during the holidays, like, that's the worst time to get sick? And then, every time I go to the pharmacy, I feel like I'm just kind time to get sick. Does anyone, especially during the holidays, like that's the worst time to get sick. And then every time I go to the pharmacy,

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I would highly recommend getting good RX during this brutal cold and flu season. For big savings on cold and flu meds, plus discounts on your everyday prescriptions, go to goodrx.com slash dark history. That's goodrx.com slash dark history. Back in 1612, the American colonies were like just getting going. And the British colonizers, they were really struggling. They had settled in Virginia and had founded the colony known as James Town, five years earlier.

And it wasn't easy. Things were rough. Most of the colonists had already starved to death, so they lost a few. You know, numbers were different then. So the king at the time, King James, decided to throw money at the problem, because yeah, why not? So he decided to help the James town settlers financially.

He thought a lottery would be a great way to convince English citizens to financially invest in the columns across the pot. Plus, it would hopefully generate enough money to support James town and help strengthen their economy. But honestly for a second, I didn't look like it was going to work out because the Puritan settlers were all about being...pure. You know, it's in their name. It makes sense. So they did not, you know, fancy gambling. They didn't even believe in it. They saw it as quote, a door and a window to worse sins.

Yeah, it's pre-intense. Basically, they thought the lottery was a gateway drug to like, sinning, like playing with a Ouija board. We're reading Harry Potter. One day, you're buying a lot of ticket. Then the next day, you're sacrificing your angst, the cord god. But where there's a well, there's always a

way. The colonists need help from the English. So King James essentially tells the Puritans to stop cock blocking the lottery. And he puts his plan into action. And the King partners up with the bad guys from Pocahontas, the movie. Remember the Virginia Company? Do you remember them? It's run by that guy who has like the big purple hat and adorable pug. It was real, and that guy was besties with King James. Yeah, so King James put the Virginia Company in charge of the first ever lottery.

Now the prize was 4,000 crowns, which was a good amount of money back in like 1612. Today that amount of money could buy you a new car, so tons of people entered. And the results speak for themselves. The English citizens were buying lottery tickets left and right. I mean, they felt good about spending that money because they believed it was helping expand their empire. The money was used to finance more ships for people to go over to Jamestown. And since the lottery was so successful, the colonies decided to expand it. In 1616, the Virginia companies sent their people on the road to sell tickets and quote unquote,

Instant lotteries. So in these smaller scale games people would often find out if they won like right away It was kind of like a scratch scratch and win lottery situation that we have today, you know people loved I love this shit. They love the instant gratification, you know? And over the next four years, the Virginia Company brought in about 29,000 pounds or $8 million since today's money. They're like, oh shit, we're on to something, huh? Well, by the 1670s, gambling was just a part of like New England life. I mean, yeah, it was against the religion at the time But that didn't matter because what happens in Jamestown stays in Jamestown and honestly snaps for the king

Because like this lottery system helped finance American infrastructure. They built new roads, bridges, churches, and even colleges. And according to Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at the college of the Holy Cross, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote,

quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote similar to today's, like a chunk of change, real estate, or land. The tickets back then were hand-written and much more simple. John Hancock

ran a lottery to help build an iconic town hall in Boston, and George Washington ran one to help build a road through a mountain in Virginia. Basically, the founding fathers used the lotteries the way we use big sales. Thomas Jefferson said that lotteries are, quote, indispensable to the existence of men. And everyone has a natural right to pursue such. And, in other words, if you think it's going to help you buy a ticket because it's the American way you guys You're true American. So during the Revolutionary War Lotterys became even more important by raising funds for the Patriot cause

Which is like kind of funny when you think about it because it's like things for the lottery England Now we're gonna use it to buy guns and like kill all your people lips. In 1776, the Continental Congress even resorted to holding a nationwide lottery to support the war effort. The prizes included money, military land warrants, and other valuable items. And like this was at 1700s, so they also gave a way enslaved people as prizes. I know. What?

Yeah, it fucked up. But there was a loophole. Nobody was expecting anyone could buy a lottery ticket, even if you were enslaved. And around 1800, a man named Denmark, the sea, who was an enslaved person in Charleston, South Carolina. He did just that. He wanted to get like in a local lottery. And to his surprise, baby, he won. He's like, oh, fuck it. And guess what? Like, he wins the money, right? They can't stop him. He won. So with this money, he was able to buy his own freedom, giving himself a completely new lease of life. Like that was their way out, which is fucked up. But then, in the 1800s, America entered a period of time called the temperance movement.

This is when everything was becoming like a moral issue, not only was drinking considered wrong, but now gambling was simple. And the lottery was definitely considered gambling. So there was like an overall shift in America toward purechanical thinking. And it's not like people were like totally unjustified. As long as we became more popular, so did lottery corruption, of course. We can't have

anything nice. Lottery organizers would sell tons of tickets, but then just like run off with like the price money and they're like, bye, they would skew we do right out of there. So naturally, some people start to get a little sketched out by the whole system, and they trusted. So participation in lottery games starts to take a nose dive. Also, during this time, America was growing, growing, growing like crazy. There was a steady stream of jobs, which means a steady flow of money into people's pockets.

And for a relatively new country, it was a big deal. And America didn't need lottery money as badly anymore, right? But what people didn't know was that America was on the brink of a financial crisis. What, that was so bad. It's been branded as the Great Depression.

No one knows about. It's called the Panic of 1837. The fact that it's called the panic is like, uh oh, doesn't sound good, right? The panic of 1837 was essentially kicked off when the banks made some very bad lending decisions as they do, huh? Europe was normally buying a lot of goods from America,

but the Europeans were like, hmm, like why don't we just make all this stuff that here in Europe? Why do we need them like why don't we just make all this stuff that's here in Europe? Why do we need them? We don't need them. So they stopped buying things from America. And finally, thanks to the president at the time, Andrew Jackson, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

Binks literally ran out of physical money to give people, and they were closing left and right. So a ton of businesses had shut down overnight because they couldn't pay their employees. And, ooh, the economy was collapsing. Americans had to blow through their savings just to get by rebuild from nothing. It took over five years for the economy

to get back on track and for life to be somewhat normal again. Did it like any of you guys have relatives or grandparents out live through the Great Depression? You know how your grandparents would like show cash into the mattresses or like the walls or something just in case of an emergency? And at the time you're like why are you doing that? And then you get older and you realize that it's actually not a normal thing to do. You know, well, after the Panago of 1837, people were doing exactly that. They were being very, I'd say, smartly conservative with their money.

You know, they were holding on to it. They were scared. Well, if that shit happens again, they don't want to be in that same situation. So of course, like, they weren't going to spend it on anything they considered frivolous like The lottery they knew that the odds of winning were slim to none So what was even the point? Let's not risk it So for the rest of the 1800s most Americans were pretty anti-lottery by 1890 Lotteries were completely banned in every state which I was like what?

Yeah, but they were except for in Delaware and Louisiana. I know Delaware is so around. I forgot it's a state. What do they even do there? I don't know. But good for them, huh? And look, it wasn't just because the government was being like a huge bus kill for decades

and the early 1900s, after the government was being like a huge bus kill for decades and the early 1900s, after the government van, the lottery became associated with the working class, poor communities, and then the mafia. Just because the lottery became illegal doesn't mean the demand to play completely disappeared. You know, to supply that demand, of course, illegally, Mafia ran versions of the lottery would like pop up all throughout different neighborhoods. And this would be through something called the numbers game. Essentially gamblers would meet illegal bookies

at locations like a barber shop or a bar. And then they would place bets on like what the winning numbers would be. And the odds of winning were again like not great. It was 999 to 1. So good luck. Plus the games were rigged a lot of the time. You know, it was kind of like carnival games. It was like no one really wins. So Mafia bookies hosting this whole lottery would make tens of thousands of dollars and the people would just like completely lose out and they'd take all that money and be happy. From 1900 to 1950, there were wars, there was a depression, and no legal honorees.

Plus, the mafia, but all made people think all lottery was connected to crime. And it wasn't until the 1960s, after World War II, that lottery started to take off again. I guess they got a new PR team. But they only came back in three states without sales or income tax. I mean, can you imagine winning the lottery and barely having to pay taxes on it?

Talk about a dream, right? And that's the first thing everyone says, like about the lottery. I wonder how much they take out and taxes. It's like, ah, I'm just gonna be happy. Jeez. But little did people know that the lottery at this time was about to make a big comeback.

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They're like, hey you guys, what if we bring back the lottery? Idea. Yay! But again, at this time, the lottery was still seen by some as like this dirty little game, you know? So lottery companies needed to find a way to make people want to play the lottery. So they turned to the same place all companies turned to when they want to test a product. Housewives. Oh yeah, Housewives. Oh yeah, housewives. So in the 1960s, grocery stores started selling

his wax coated lottery tickets. And the only way you could see if you won any money off these tickets was to wipe the wax that was on the card. You'd have to wipe it off with a rag dipped in butter or you'd scratch it off. I know, I like the rag dipped in butter, that sounds fun. That's right, this was like an early version of the scratchers we know and love today. Only a few people would win with these waxy lotto tickets, and if you did win, it would usually like only be a penny. But like people really

didn't care. It was thrilling. It's getting exciting. Even today, if you win a dollar, you're like, oh, ah! So excited, right? It's just, I don't know. We love to win, don't we?

So yeah, they love that. They're like a penny. Oh my God, oh my God, I'm gonna faint. I'm gonna madz out. I want to have been a few years later in 1974. Scratchers were invented by two guys working for a company called Scientific Games Corporation. And this time, if you won, you weren't winning pennies. This time, you'd be winning some

serious money. I'm talking jackpot money in the thousands. Well, when this was released, people were obsessed. Okay, there were lines all down the block. And when people did get into the grocery stores to buy them, they would like, they were buying them by like the fistful. They were out of control. Stories were begging the scratcher companies to like send them more tickets. It was such a hit that the companies could barely even keep up. They somehow did, you know? And then to this day, there are essentially like two companies that make our favorite scratchers. The one I mentioned a minute ago, scientific game corporation. Yeah, they're still around random. And then a company called Pollard Bank

No. So like, they completely dominate the market for creating scratch off tickets. I love scratchers. Aren't they fun? Ugh. And now that scratches were on the scene. I mean, the lottery wasn't a joke anymore. It was a cool, mystical thing that like people genuinely could have a chance at winning. So the lottery was gaining steam and becoming more popular. That meant more people were playing. And the more people are playing, the bigger the jackpot star.

And when you know it, people started winning. And they weren't winning big. I mean, some people's lives changed completely for the better. It was a literal dream come true. But for others, it turned out to be like a total nightmare. This is when something else started to happen when people took home their lottery winnings. Some people started to experience the lottery.

When someone wins the lottery, their whole life changes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Even though 85% of water you winners choose to remain anonymous, usually their identity gets exposed. And once that happens, they become a target, right? Because the media puts their face and their name out there, and then everyone wants to get a look at that over 9 millionaire. And then they start reaching out like, hey, remember me? But unless you're one of those people who comes out to publicly accept your check, there is the option to come dressed in a disguise. And in 2019, a person in Jamaica

came dressed in the screen costume to accept their winnings. Yeah, like ghost face situation. And honestly, it was a really good idea. And he was allowed to. Good for that person, right? It was funny. It kind of looked like a poll, honestly. But if you don't go that route, chances are

people start coming out of the woodwork and they try to get money and manipulate you into investing into them or their business or whatever, right? I mean, most lottery winners are playing because they don't have a crazy amount of money. So when a person is given a check for millions of dollars or whatever the frick winners often,

they don't know how to manage that money, right? Would you know how to manage that? No, I'd be like, I'm getting six lambo's, I'm buying everyone a house, and I'm never sleeping again. And on whoops, they're cause my money. There have been like dozens of instances where a lottery winner wishes

that they had never won in the first place. There's a perfect example of this in the story about a man named Bud Post. In 1988, Bud, nah, he was not doing well. He was 66 years old. He had some health problems. He was not disability. And he only had $2.46 in the bank.

He was at the point where he was just pawning things just to get by. So one day, he ends up pawning a ring for $40. He hands the money to his land lady slash girlfriend. Her name was Ann Carpick. So Bud asked Ann to buy him $40 worth of Lotto tickets. And when Ann brought him those tickets back, it turns out like one of them was a big win, right?

Bud had one 16.2 million dollars. The dream, wow, good for you, bud. So he wins all this money and what does he do? He starts spending it, right? The, he ends up leasing a restaurant in Florida for his brother and sister. He bought a used car lot and all of the cars on it for his other brother.

And he even bought himself a plane. But though the funny part was that bud didn't even have like a pilot's license, but he himself a plane. Uh, but though the funny part was that bud didn't even have a like a pilot's license. But he got a plane. Within three months. Three months. Bud was $500,000 in debt. Huh? How?

I know. His life was like a total shisho. Ugh, poor guy. So just a year after he won the $16.2 million, Bud's brother, this shit had hired a hitman to try and like, take him out so he could take Bud's lottery money. He didn't know he was in debt. Yeah, Bud's brother. What a dick.

Well, luckily, he got caught and then convicted. But by then, like, Bud was a strange from all of his siblings, which is so lame. He did nice things for you guys' assholes. But it wasn't just like family drama. He was facing some legal trouble himself. Bud got into a fight with his sixth wife. Need I say more?

And things turned violent. Bud took a shotgun and fired it into her car. Oh shit, and then he was charged by the court in order to stay away from his sixth wife. I just feel like maybe after three, you should stop getting married. Yeah, right? Wait, it's okay, bud.

Anyhow, bud just can't seem to stay out of trouble, you know? Or like, put that shotgun down. Because after all that drama, a man showed up at Bud's house to collect a dead heat was off. I guess this guy repaired one of Bud's cars, and, well, I didn't have the money or something, but he didn't pay him. So what did Bud do?

Well, he took his shotgun right off that wall wherever it was, and he shot right at that guy. Allegedly, he was just trying to scare him off his property, but, you know, you can't do that. So once again, Bud was taken to court and convicted of assault sentenced to serve six to 24 months in prison. Poor bud, he's struggling. So not long after that whole like shotgun fiasco, bud was ensued by his girlfriend slash land lady, Anne, remember her. So Anne had claimed that she and bud had this verbal agreement to split his lottery money if he wanted. It was the classic he said she said.

No physical evidence, you know? They ended up fighting over it in court for three long, very expensive years. Finally, a judge ruled he had to turn over one third of his money to hand, but by that point, Bud was so deep and dead, he couldn't pay her. And whatever money he did have, he refused to hand it over. The judge was forced to freeze all of the money in Bud's account because Bud was just so unpredictable with his spending. So Bud was receiving payments from the lottery system

like every few months. So when this whole situation happened, he was forced to sell off all of the things he bought with his lottery money just to get by like his homes, his trucks, his motorcycles, his TV computers, blah, blah, blah, all of it. He even had to sell his huge like fixer upper mansion. And no matter what he did, Bud was still in a financial hole. So Bud auctioned off the rest of his 17 lottery payments he was due. Yeah, you could do that.

Great idea, Bud. And he ends up telling the press, quote, once I'm no longer a lottery winner, people will lay me alone. That's all I want. Just peace of mind. End quote. In 1998, Bud was on his sailboat, just live in life, happy as a man on a sailboat.

So he's sailing this boat and probably smiling. When suddenly, from behind him, he hears a loud voice. Pfft, it's the police! Which I didn't even know police could like pull you over in a boat. I don't know. I don't have a boat. Anyways, so the police ordered Bud to like surrender to them immediately and he's like, what the fuck? I'm just living my life right now. Well, I guess allegedly Bud was supposed to like

turn himself in a long time ago for that prison sentence. You know, the one where he shot the car repair guy with a shotgun, he was supposed to go jail for that. So it turns out he didn't. But he refuses to leave his sailboat. So the police like have to forcibly remove him. But he was arrested and brought straight to prison. When he was out of the slammer, Bud was completely and totally broke.

He was reportedly living off of his $450 a month disability checks and his sixth wife divorced him. And I'm not laughing at that, but you know, it does just a funny thing to say sixth wife, okay, he was completely miserable. To look at the bright side, at least he got to experience like what it's like to have money

because I'm sure a lot of us would be like, I'm just more not that bright, we wouldn't mind that. But yeah, on the other side, when he lost everything, he got out of jail and divorced and everything, he wasn't in a good place, he was miserable. And in 2006, Bud passed away, sadly alone, respiratory failure. BUDD once said, quote, everybody dreams of winning money,

but nobody realizes the nightmares that come out of the woodwork or the problems. I was going to say, I think there's a song about this. I've got 99 problems, but that has to do with the bitch, not money. I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyways, but even though you hear horror stories about people like bud, I mean, of course, that's not gonna keep people from wanting to play and hopefully win. And some people don't just hope they'll win the lottery. They're willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Oh, let me give you a good example, okay? There's this one guy saying was Papa Nick. Well, that's what he went by.

Now, don't let the cute name fool you because the sky was the mastermind. Behind one of the most famous lottery scandals of all time. Was that? Was that? Oh, yeah. It was known as the triple six fix.

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Not telling you to do anything, but it's like time to get on board, you know? Let your customers shop risk-free this holiday season with Shipstation. Go to shipstation.com and use code dark history today and sign up for your free 60 day trial. That's shipstation.com code dark history. Meet Nick Perry.

Back in the 1970s, this guy was the king of Pittsburgh. He was a beloved TV host and an announcer featured on WTAE channel for Pittsburgh. He did the news, he did the weather, and he also hosted shows like, Poke Party and Folling for Dollars. I mean, this guy did it all. He kept the people entertained. Papa Nick was a veteran of the United States Navy

who fought in World War II, and in his free time, he sang songs for Jesus as a leader in his church wife. This guy was like the walking, talking American wet dream, right? Everyone knew and liked him. So in 1977, when the state of Pennsylvania announced that it was going to have a brand new daily lottery, it would be called the Daily Number. Papua Nick was the perfect man to announce the winning numbers every night on Channel 4. I mean who better to give out a bunch of money than the trusted Grand Paul everyone

in Pittsburgh tunes into every night, you know? Now the Daily Number is a very simple lottery game. Three air powered machines have a tank full of like ping pong balls, and the balls are all numbered from zero to nine. So Joan, your 13 makes no damn sets. Called out bitch. During the live broadcast, Papa Nick turns on the machines, sending the balls bouncing around the the tank like just randomly, right? the balls bouncing around the the tank like just randomly right? Alongside him as a local senior citizen, we get to like have their 15 minutes of fame on camera by helping pop and hit select the balls. It's kind of like you know when they bring in like puppies and like adopt

this puppy. He's cute. That's what they did with some senior citizens. Isn't he cute? It's cute! That's what they did with some senior citizens. Isn't he cute? It's like that. Well, the things going around, and one by one, a ball would shoot up a tube from each tank. Eventually, the number reveals a three-digit number. And if someone guesses the three-digit number correctly, well, they would win $500 for each $1 they bet. So if someone bet five bucks,

I'm gonna do some math here, they would win $2,500. And if you had five winning tickets, you have five times $2,500. I'm not gonna do that math. At the time, the state of Pennsylvania have prided itself on on how tight the security was on their lottery games like the daily number.

No one was able to cheat the system. The machines and ping pong balls were kept in a secure room that needed two keys to open it. And there was even an outside company that would like analyze the balls to make sure that no one was messing with them. It's funny how like protective they are over these balls and not other things.

I won't name other things, but I'm sure you could dig about it. Like it is kind of silly, whatever. Protect the balls. Anyway, Papa Nick, he knew all of this, right? And he even had access to everything. I mean, hello, he's the host. He knew exactly how to rig the system

if he wanted to to work in his favor, you know? He's like, I might not know how to do it, I don't know. So, Papa Nick decides, you know what? I'm gonna fucking do it. I'm gonna rig the system and I'm gonna make a lot of money. Yeah, Papa Nick, this little saint, all of a sudden, is gonna rig the system, what, huh?

So he started to put together what he thought was a foolproof plan. And he knows he couldn't do it alone. He can't do it alone. He needs a crew, you know, just like in the movies. So step one, he needed access to that secure room. So what's he gotta do? He's gotta get some t-shirts. He's gotta suck. So, what's he got to do? He's got to get some tits.

He's got to suck a- What's he got to do, you know? To get it, he smushed a guy named Edward. So, Edward was a state lottery officer who guarded the machines and the balls. Papa Nick told them that if he could get access to the balls, he could weigh down a few of them and increase the odds of picking the right numbers. Papa Nick said if they did it right, they could walk away with millions. So this guy's like, fuck yeah, I'm in. And with a payday like that, I mean, that's really all Edward needed to hear. Papa Nick gets Edward in on the plan. So step two, Papa Nick needed someone

who could create replica versions of the lottery balls for use every single night. For this, he turned to someone who used to be an art director at Channel 4. Apparently, Papa Nick went to the sky one day and said, hey, what would you say if I told you you could make $100,000? And I guess that was all it took and the art director was like, I'm in. I know, raise your prices people. You are worth more. So Papa Nick gave the art director 12 syringes. Okay, Yasa gave them a scale

and told this person to go by 30 ping pong balls that were the same as like the ones that they used on the show in those machines. So then the art director recreated each ball by hand. He should have got paid mark. And here's like the genius part. I was like, eh, smart. He used the syringes to inject a little bit of white paint into every ball that wasn't a four or six. I know you're thinking white paint, I got it. Well, the white paint would blend in with the natural color of the pink pop ball,

but more importantly, it would weigh the balls down. So heavy balls would paint in them. They would still bounce around in the tank, but they wouldn't go up the shoot. He's onto something, huh? Translation. The lightest balls were fours and sixes, so a player should buy a ticket and only pick a combination of the numbers 4 and 6. So, Papa Nick's scheme took the odds

from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 8. That's a pretty good chance, huh? Now, Papa Nick knew that it might raise some eyebrows if he went around town buying up tons of lottery tickets for the show he himself hosts, right? So, he leaned on his childhood buddies Peter and Jack. In my mind, I'm like, this guy's getting too many people involved.

Can't do it, buddy did it. Okay. And on April 24th, 1980, on the day of the drawing, Peter and Jack, they hopped into like their white Cadillac and they drove around Philadelphia. So they went around to a bunch of different like small stores and dive bars where they placed about 14,000 bets for one dollar each on all the possible combinations of four or six. Now back at the studio, the art director had those weighted ping-pong balls all hidden away. But while that security guard, Ed, just happened to be looking the other way, the art director like swapped the balls, you know, the normal ones with the weighted ones. And the machines were rolled in front of the cameras, ready to go. Around 7pm, the drawing for the daily number went live.

And the announcer introduced Papa Nick like he normally does. The man with all the dollars, the king can himself. And now interesting choice of words given, what was happening under everyone's noses, huh? Well, Papa Nick, alongside a sweet clueless local citizen, and they stood at tank number one. Uncapped the tube. The sweet clue this local citizen and they stood out tank number one.

Uncapped the tube and upshot the first ball. Number six. Then they moved onto the second tank. Second ball shot up. Number six. And finally, the third take and the final ball. Number six. I know, I was like, oh my god, demons.

So literally the winning number was six, six sets. So kind of fitting for the situation, huh? If you squint, it makes sense, totally makes sense. So the payout for this drawing was $3.5 million, which we always have to do conversion here, right? In today's money, it's like $13 million. And for a state lottery, oh, this was an insane amount of money at the time. According to records, Papa Nick's childhood buddies selected 666 on about

2,400 of the bets they placed. And most of that winning money was headed for the pockets of Pittsburgh. Pretty boy. Papa Nick. I know, I was like, you're on TV and stuff, don't you make enough, bro? Nongest oct. We'll have a family member who we wish we stayed in touch

with more often, you know? Maybe they live somewhere far, whatever, and you're like, man, it's just hard to see them. You miss them. Well, with Skylight Frame, they have come up with a pretty brilliant way to solve that problem. Skylight is a touch screen photo frame that you can remotely send photos to.

Yeah, you can send photos like straight from your phone and they appear on the frame in seconds. It's like magic. It's like such a great gift for your brand parent and for anyone who maybe doesn't live close by, or maybe that you just wanna connect more with, you know? Both of my sisters, they both live at a state. So I'm sending them these skylight frames for Christmas

and I'm just constantly gonna upload selfies, just different selfies of me, you know? I can surprise, like me and a sweater and stuff. It's gonna be fun. I know they're gonna love it. And it's also super simple to send photos to the Skylight app, or they give you like a unique email address.

You can take a photo or select a photo, send it right to that email or through the app, and poof, and seconds, an HD photo will show up on that frame. And the frame itself, it comes in like a sleek black, white, silver, there's gold and a limited edition poppy which is like this nice, 1G red. So this holiday, give the gift of skylight. It's so cute.

To get $15 off your purchase of a skylight frame, just go to skylightframe.com slash dark. That skylight frame, SKYLIGHTFRAME.com slash dark. It really does make a great gift though. Highly recommend. Papa Nick would have like gotten away with this whole lottery situation if it hadn't been for a mobster named Chowni. I know, kind of check sound, huh?

Tony, a mobster. Wow. Chowni himself was like in the numbers business, which is like a mafia way to say that he ran an illegal lottery in Pittsburgh. And Tony's lottery wasn't some like, brinky-dink game. It brought in $30 million a year

over the course of 40 years. So Tony's pretty solid, I'd say. Now, Papa Nick's buddies didn't just like place bets at local stores. They also put money down with like some underground bookies. That's where they went wrong. Because these bookies noticed a weirdly high number bets coming in with the numbers for and six.

And then when the daily number of six to six hit, these bookies, hmm, they smelled something was wrong. Okay. So, they decided they were not going to pay out the winnings, and instead they alerted their boss. Choney. Because Tony looked at the state lottery as a competition, he was more than happy to squeal to a local reporter, essentially telling them, them like look how corrupt this state law

to it. Somebody rigged it. Well, this reporter was like what? Huh? Let me look into this and ended up like blowing the whole scandal wide open. The reporter's story pushed the governor to open an investigation. And one by one, the dominoes all fell. Everyone started riding on everyone and this brought them to the doorstep of Popponeck. Sir, poor Popponeck. It was handcuffed and charged with all sorts of crimes. The criminal trial against Popponeck

only took about a week for all of the witnesses to take the stand. And the evidence was damning after a little over six hours of deliberation. The jury found Papua Nick guilty of criminal conspiracy, criminal mischief theft by deception, perjury, and rigging public contests. I know I was like, why?

I didn't even know you could get charged with all those. What are those? When all of a sudden, Duhn Puppet Nick was like sentenced to seven years in the slammer and his security guard friend, Ed, and the two other guys involved. They too also went to prison. Even with all this information now public,

some of Puppet Nick's fans remained loyal to the very end. I don't blame him. He was a fun guy. One of them wrote an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. They said, quote, it's like Joan of Arc being burned at the stake. End quote. Sure.

Okay, very similar. All right. Well, Papa Nick only served two years of his sentence, so he kind of looked out, but his reputation was totally ruined for the rest of his life. He was already old, so he didn't give a shit. And nobody ever knew why Papa Nick really did this.

Again, he was already famous, he had plenty of money. It was risky, right? And not only that, it was just super greedy. It's like, what the fuck, Papa Nick? We were rooting for you. Well, it was just super greedy. It's like, what the fuck, Papa Nick? We were rooting for you. Well, it doesn't matter. Because Papa Nick died on April 22nd, 2003.

And that was until his very last breath, he never admitted a damn thing. I wonder where he buried the money. When I look at everything, it seems like the lottery has this ability to make dreams come true, right? And just like, wow, or it just totally turns people into corrupt monsters. But tons of people play anyway, because we all want a chance to hit that huge jackpot, don't we? I love a scratcher. Oh god, I'm like, it's fun. Oh god, I'm like, it's so snurr, it's fun. Anyhow, one expert says there is about $2.89 billion

out there just floating around in unclaimed lottery tickets. Yeah. So why don't they just spread that money out for us? I don't know, just an idea I had. But with that being said, look, everyone makes fun. Me not everyone, but like some people make fun of me because sometimes if I'm walking I like to take walks and I see a lottery scratcher on the ground Because it's trashy where I like there's just trash everywhere. So it's like I pick it up. I love I like picking up people stuff because they assume it's garbage But sometimes they don't realize that they won

stuff because they assume it's garbage, but sometimes they don't realize that they want. I'm not to give away my secrets or anything, but I've won a dollar off of a picked up scratcher before, so whenever one day I'm gonna hit a big and you all won't be laughing. Here's what we've learned, right? The lottery started to build things in America, that we needed. And that's still kind of the case today, like here in California, since 1985, the lottery has given more than $41.5 billion to public schools. And they're still shitty, so that's a weird bar, huh? But here's my question, if the lottery is still doing

all the footwork, where the hell am my tax dollars going? Huh, because I thought that was paying for that shit. Let's expose, I mean, receipts, where's all of our money going, huh? And then there's another side of the whole lottery argument, lottery's entice more people to play, and that creates new generations of gamblers.

I mean, think about going to Chuck E. Cheese growing up. Okay, they act like that was like a place for kids to play and get some pizza and meet them out. It wasn't. They were training us. How to gamble. And they say gambling isn't legal for kids, but what was that?

We all wanted those tickets, got damn it. For that stupid shit, plastic shit, whatever. So I mean, this is just my personal opinion, but I believe that we were kind of raised subconsciously to like gamble and love the lottery. Oh my God, should we start a class action lawsuit against Chuck E. Cheese? Let me know down below.

So our lottery is good or not, you know, what the fuck is up? Well, from what I've learned, we can really make a good argument for both sides. I mean, you're 25 times more likely to become the president of the United States than you are to win the power ball. I know. So you're saying there's a chance. That's how I look at it, you know? Like, many of you must agree too, because Americans spend about $100 billion a year on lottery tickets.

That's about $420 for every adult in the United States. Is that that though? I mean, it's kind of an investment. I might win, all right? And then you're gonna come crawling to me when I do. I mean, honestly, when you think about it, I mean, this is why I think a lot of us play the lottery because winning the lottery seems like the only way

any of us will ever be able to achieve that American dream, you know. And even after I've learned all this about the lottery, it's still so confusing to me. I still don't get it, really. It's like it's good and bad. It's not part of the government, but the government gets the money, huh? You know, there is no national lottery, but a bunch of states can be part of something like the Power Mall. It's just confusing. Like what the hell's going on?

Because listen, the lottery's got a shady past and I got questions. Anywho, that's the story about lottery, huh? Ain't that something. So go out and get yourself a scratcher. Now don't do that. No, I'll do it. Live a little. Oh my God, it's so much fun.

Just don't get addicted. Be responsible, okay? And don't take your kids to Chuck E. Cheese because what the fuck was that about? Don't come for me, Chuck E. Cheese. Anyhow, you guys, join me over on my YouTube where you can actually watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs and you can see how cute I am.

But also while you're there you can catch my murder mystery makeup. It's a real good time. I would love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story so don't forget to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can see what you're saying. Now, let's read a couple of comments you guys left me. Danielle Hopper said, quote, Bayley, you need to interact with Paul more. It made everything better.

Did you leave that comment, Paul? Was that from you? Were you using your catfish account? I know you have that account, Paul. Don't lie to me. Sam left a comment on our Stalin part two episodes, saying, quote, cannibal island is another brain child of Stalin,

just horrific, and broke. So naturally, I was like, cannibal island. What? I had never heard of this. I guess Stalin just like dumped tens of thousands of people on an island since Siberia and let them starve to death. Yeah, I can't believe this was real.

I was like, what? We did two episodes on Stalin and honestly, it could have been six with all the shit he was up to and this could be a whole Stalin podcast, but yeah. Mm-hmm. Cannibal Island, I don't know what the fuck that was. Natasha Garcia had an episode suggestion for us. Saying, quote, I love an episode on Unit 731 in Japan. And, quote, you guys, I'm loving these ideas because I'm like, what is this?

I had to look this up. And then the first thing that popped up was lethal human experimentation. So I was in obviously. So it looks like this was a chemical warfare research program in Japan that killed something like 300,000 people. What? Yeah, it was dark.

And that's history. Honestly Natasha. Don't you worry, girl, I'm right not down. I'm running down. Dark History is an audio boom of original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Junia McNely from Three Arts, Kevin Grush, and Matt N. Lowe from Made in Network. Writers, Joey Skavuzzo, Katie Burris, Allison Palobos, and me, Bailey Sarian,

production lead, Brian Jaggers, research provided by Zander Elmore, Rodney Smith, and Colleen Smith. A special thank you to our expert, Victor Matheson.

And don't you forget it, I'm your host, Bailey Serian. I hope you have a good rest of your week. Please make good choices out there and I'll be seeing you guys later. Goodbye. Bye. I'm going to cry.