by Mark BROWN

Cost: $5

Max­i­mum prize: $25,000

“Sec­ond Chance” sweep­stakes prize, for non-win­ning tick­ets: An Ul­ti­mate King-Sized Grace­land Experience!

Ap­peal: The Hol­ly­wood trope about am­a­teur lot­tery-tick­et re­view­ers who write for ob­scure lit­er­ary web sites hav­ing hero­ic sch­longs, mem­o­rable hair, and garbage bags over­flow­ing with cash is on­ly two-thirds true: we are not uni­form­ly rich. A five-dol­lar tick­et is a mi­nor splurge for me: but I could not re­sist the lure of an all-ex­pens­es-paid trip to Elvis’s hal­lowed Graceland. 

That said: This tick­et is a mixed bag. The un­scratched de­sign is love­ly, with a score of tiny gui­tars defin­ing the gam­ing grid. But then you get to the game­play and strum-scratch the sil­ver six-stringers to re­veal… bor­ing num­bers to match against the card’s win­ning slate of bor­ing num­bers. The King is a sun at the cen­ter of so­lar sys­tem of vi­su­al pos­si­bil­i­ty:  hound dogs, suede shoes, and ham­burg­ers could all have made fine “match the icon” el­e­ments — but the rich iconog­ra­phy of Elvis is un­tapped af­ter the scratch. 

The sil­ver lin­ing: While the im­me­di­ate scratchie game­play dis­ap­points, los­ing tick­ets act as a vir­tu­al raf­fle-tick­et in the on­line “Sec­ond Chance” draw­ing. So while fiv­er I spent to­day didn’t reap in­stant pay­back, maybe, just maybe, two months from now I’ll find a note In­box about my tick­ets to Mem­phis. And that’s a fine day­dream to add to my collection.

Graph­ic De­sign: ⁵⁄₁₀

Eroti­cism: ⁹⁄₁₀

Im­me­di­ate Fun: ²⁄₁₀

An­tic­i­pat­ed Fun: 10 / 10

Over­all val­ue: ⁵⁄₁₀

Filed under Lottery Tickets, Reviewed on February 4th, 2022

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