AN OUTRAGE? YOU BET
AN OUTRAGE? YOU BET Acon-game conspiracy stalks the land, using a fantasy of instant riches to bilk financially vulnerable Americans out of their hard-earned nest eggs. Fortunately, however, a...
...And no more than a handful of our politicians seem to care...
...David Tell, for the Editors...
...Ed McMahon and Dick Clark...
...Outrage...
...And most people who do buy a magazine from Ed McMahon have previously entered his sweepstakes— for free—and failed to receive a prize...
...Scandal...
...We look forward to Jeff Modisett’s lawsuit against Indiana governor Frank O’Bannon...
...Last year, Modisett filed suit against McMahon, Clark, and the magazine sweepstakes they pitch for, American Family Publishers of New Jersey...
...This is not exactly a secret: You don’t have to buy a magazine to win, you’re extremely unlikely to win one way or the other, and if you believe any different, then . . . well, you’re kind of foolish...
...Of course, in fairness to these two gentlemen, we should point out here that most people, including residents of Indiana, understand that they almost certainly haven’t “already won” the sweepstakes periodically announced in their mailboxes—and toss those envelopes directly in the trash...
...The odds on the Hoosier Lottery’s largest jackpot— in the multi-state “Powerball” drawing—are 80 million to one...
...But the Las Vegas Hilton may not spend a dime...
...Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the casino-advertising ban...
...here, too, you have almost zero chance of winning big...
...Sadly, the answer is no...
...Still, we hold no brief for Ed McMahon, who does not market THE WEEKLY STANDARD, and we think profiting from the foolishness of others isn’t a very nice thing to do...
...Ashton Hardy, the Louisiana media-law expert who persuaded the Supreme Court to hear Greater New Orleans, says yes: “I have no doubt of it...
...America’s real sweepstakes problem, the giant industry of private and state-sponsored gambling, continues to metastasize...
...In stark contrast to the typical magazine sweepstakes, you do have to spend money to play the Hoosier Lottery...
...Daily Millions...
...In the Senate, Republican Susan Collins of Maine has held highly publicized hearings and introduced legislation that would restrict this scam...
...Twice in the past thirteen months, the Supreme Court has declined to review lower-court rulings that Section 1304 is unconstitutional...
...And when it dies, probably in June, will the big casino conglomerates start buying national television time like it’s going out of style...
...Most people who do enter such contests make no purchase of any kind...
...One wonders how McMahon and Clark can sleep at night...
...Cash for Life...
...Nowadays, the Hoosier Lottery may spend millions of dollars to market its “games” of chance on the airwaves...
...But honestly, now: Fat lot of good that’ll do anybody...
...And so all of them were now out the cost of Sports Illustrated or some other such journal—subscriptions they did not really want or need...
...For some reason, each had fully expected to win that money...
...The High Court says that “commercial speech” about lawful business enterprises may only be regulated so as directly and narrowly to advance a “substantial government interest...
...And our political system’s addiction to this revenue, more than any other single factor, will shortly make possible a shocking new low in the nation’s near-psychotic embrace of gambling...
...You don’t get Sports Illustrated when you lose...
...criminal code’s Title 18 bars radio and television promotion of “any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme, offering prizes dependent in whole or part upon lot or chance...
...And public servants like Indiana’s Democratic attorney general Jeff Modisett, who has led a similar consumer-protection crusade at the state level, are bravely identifying the principal evildoers by name...
...Though hardly anyone seems aware of it yet, sometime soon, maybe as early as this summer, our living rooms will likely be saturated with prime-time television commercials promoting the blackjack and roulette tables at privately owned casinos...
...None of them did...
...After Congress has allowed, and the various states have eagerly administered, an unprecedented explosion in betting activity nationwide, can anyone say with a straight face that government maintains a “substantial interest” in restricting the spread of gambling...
...In the meantime, the Hoosier Lottery—together with comparable numbers rackets operated by the governments of 36 other states and the District of Columbia—will continue suckering millions of Americans to the tune of $36 billion a year...
...Nominally, at least, federal law continues to prohibit broadcast-media gambling ads, as it has since 1934...
...And, despite the grotesquely dishonest hype (“Hoosier Millionaire...
...He did so on behalf of roughly twenty Indiana residents who had complained about the company’s eight-figure grand prize...
...But oddly enough, so far as we can tell, Jeff Modisett has made nary a peep about this particular come-on, which recently appeared in newspapers throughout Indiana...
...Frankly,” he says, “Ed McMahon and Dick Clark ought to be ashamed of themselves...
...There isn’t a serious Supreme Court-watcher in the country who thinks the justices intend to do anything but strike down the ban for good...
...By then, of course, Jeff Modisett and Susan Collins may well have Ed McMahon in leg irons...
...Which inconsistency places what remains of Section 1304 in considerable tension with the Supreme Court’s recent First Amendment jurisprudence...
...Bet on it...
...Section 1304 is doomed...
...So we suppose we can see how Indiana’s attorney general might be concerned over come-ons promising that “You could win the top prize of one MILLION dollars in cash, all at once, EVERY DAY of the week...
...even they know the score...
...It was an ad for the “Hoosier Lottery,” his state’s own, government-run rip-off, an enterprise that makes Ed McMahon and company look like a bunch of Trappist monks...
...But since 1975, first and most significantly to accommodate the hunger of state treasuries for lottery proceeds, Congress has carved gaping exemptions into this gambling-commercial “ban,” such that only casinos—and only those casinos not operated by Indian tribes—are covered by it any longer...
...Section 1304 of the U.S...
...Instead, the High Court has scheduled oral arguments a few weeks from now in Greater New Orleans Broadcasting v. United States, a lonely Fifth U.S...
...Fortunately, however, a bipartisan group of the nation’s elected officials is on full alert...
...And at this point, what “substantial government interest” can Section 1304 still plausibly support...
Vol. 4 • March 1999 • No. 27
