Well, hell...all the other kids are talking about it:
Texas to install self-service lottery ticket machines
AUSTIN - Texas lottery officials plan to install about 1,000 self-serve units at retail outlets across the state to dispense tickets for games like Lotto Texas, Mega Millions and Cash Five.
The ATM-like machines will also be able to scan tickets from previous drawings and tell players whether they have won money.
"We think the players will like them," lottery spokesman Bobby Heith told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "You can purchase your tickets and check to see if you have a winner without taking up the retailer's time."
Taking up the retailer's time. Right.
Heith is being too kind to the thousands of closet ticket purchasers who complained because they either a) don't want to be seen publicly dropping money into the yawning pit toilet of Lotto purchases or, b) would rather not have to deal with the vast unwashed masses at their local Gas 'n Sip.
Many of whom, I'm told, smell just awful.
Self-serv lottery kiosks are the latest development in removing actual human beings from the customer service loop. We've had automated phone menus and pay-at-the-pump gas stations for years. I'm just waiting for my neighborhood grocery store to put in a "U Dispense It" methadone booth.
Hopefully it'll come in some flavors besides "methadone."
how about
cool ranch methadone
spicy cajun methadone
I prefer the breakfast cereal methadone model, including:
Apple Jitters
Opi-MMM's
Flake Flakes
Cap'n Cody
Belushios
What if the machine dispenses a winning ticket to itself? It goes like this: it gets stuck, much like the Coke cans often seem to do in our vending machine. The maintainence guy cleans the machine out because it's jammed and hundreds of desperate people want to gamble to get their way out of trouble. He throws the mangled ticket away. It's the winning ticket. A judge rules the machine dispensed the ticket, but because no-one officially collected it, it's the property of the machine.
The machine then is the proud owner of millions of dollars. That's how he starts the robot army...
The horror. The horror.
So, it's like dollar slots with poorer odds.
Neat.
Now all you need is a row of them and ten little old ladies clutching a coin cup, pumping the machine full of money, and smoking a Virginia Slim Menthol 120 and you've got Atlantic City at the Circle K.
Nice.
Hmmm, so let me get this straight... The great state of Texas is willing to make it even easier for people who are too poor to feed their families throw money away faster on the lottery, but a senior citizen dying of cancer can't get medicinal THC to ease their pain, rouse their appitite, or otherwise make their tortured, invalidic existence just a little more enjoyable.
Compassionate conservatism, my ass.