The Day I Bet Against God And Lost A $30 Million Lottery Jackpot

I bought five New Jersey Pick-6 tickets on Yom Kippur.

That is some serious spiritual Russian roulette right there. Not only did I fail to go to religious services with my family, but then I had the chutzpah to go buy lottery tickets? I mean, no. That’s bad. Not a good look. It’s like a vegetarian sneaking a hamburger. Then washing it down with a whole cow. In front of Gandhi. 

And let me tell you — when my father found out about me spending money on gambling on Yom Kippur, he was not happy. He is, in the parlance of Larry David, a pretty big Jew. 

This was Sept. 18, 1991. I was 19 years old and, about five days earlier, had dropped out of college.

I was at the University of Maryland, where I was nominally a sophomore, although I only had 13 credits. A year earlier, first semester, I had received a GPA of 0.86.

That’s not a misprint. That’s zero-point-eight-six. Four F’s, and a B in tennis — my backhand, apparently, needed work.

How did this happen?

Simple enough.

I stopped going to classes and instead spent my time trying to inhale as much marijuana as I could fit in my lungs while trying to have sex with as many women as humanly possible. (I was wildly successful in one of these pursuits. In the other pursuit, I went to war with acne, a mullet, and Jeffrey Dahmer glasses.) 

It was fun, but as might be imagined, dear ol’ Dad wasn’t happy with this turn of events. I went back in the spring, more or less buckled down, and secured a 3.0 GPA.

But before that, in the fall of ‘91, the start of that nominal sophomore year, I was retaking botany (one of the F’s from a year previous). I showed up to the first lab of the semester. We were each given a plant, a lamp, and a protractor. We were then instructed to spend the next three hours shining the lamp onto the plant and measure how much, if at all, the plant moved toward the light.

At that point, I remembered why I stopped going to botany in the first place and decided to keep the F grade and drop the class. I walked out. 

On my way back to my apartment, I decided to drop out completely. College wasn’t for me. The end.

Five days later, I was in my childhood bedroom, getting yelled at for not going to Yom Kippur services. After my parents and little brother left for temple, at some point I drove to Baldwin Stationary in Parsippany to buy those lottery tickets, and, probably, a pack of Camel Lights. I remember the jackpot was huge at (and for) the time, somewhere near $30 million. I had bought an occasional ticket here and there, maybe once or twice before, but never five at once. This was probably about 2.5% of my bankroll. As in, all the money I actually had to my name.

I was 19, near-penniless, a bad Jew, painfully single, high as hell, mulleted, a college dropout, a pack-a-day smoker, and looking to win the lottery. 

As far as life plans go, this one was clearly foolproof.

And the numbers are …

It’s hard to explain how angry my dad was about all this. His son — his firstborn! — dropped out of college and turned away from his religion, all in a week’s span. He was … displeased.

I don’t really recall much else about that day past getting yelled at for not going to temple. I know I bought the tickets, and I’m certain I smoked weed. Outside of that … I think I watched some VHS tapes of Beverly Hills 90210 that my friend Rob’s sister recorded. Sounds about right.

The next evening was the drawing. I turned on the TV to watch it live. My brother, five years younger than me, was next to me.

The numbers started getting pulled, my eyes went to the five rows of numbers on the ticket, and the balls were coming too fast for my eyes to keep up with (potentially due to the marijuana usage).

But something was happening. Numbers were matching. They were 13, 14, 22, 27, 29, 44. I looked at the ticket. I looked at the screen. I looked at the ticket. I looked at the screen. A lot of looking was going on and …

“I matched four!” I yelled.

A beat passed. My brother — who up until this point in our relationship served mostly as someone I would either be punching or ignoring — spoke up.

“You matched five,” he said.

I looked. I did. Holy crap. I matched five. Five! 

“DAD!!!!!”

My father came in from the kitchen. I showed him the ticket. He smiled, laughed, whatever people do when their loved ones match five out of six numbers in the lottery. We were new at this.

“How much did you win?” he asked.

I didn’t know, wouldn’t know until the next day, but it ended up being $2,154. A princely sum at that moment in my life.

And my first thought — because I was a true ass — was, “so much for Yom Kippur, eh?” 

Here I am, Bad Jew No. 1, thumbing my nose at religion, buying lotto tickets on the holiest of days, and still taking down a four-figure payday.

“I guess God didn’t mind me buying those tickets,” I smirked to my dad.

My father didn’t miss a beat.

“Yeah maybe,” he said. “Or maybe he would’ve let you win the $30 million if you didn’t buy the ticket on Yom Kippur.”

That stopped me in my tracks. And it has stayed with me to this day. I mean … what if, you know?

At any rate, three months later, I was back in college, graduated with a journalism degree, and here I am — still not particularly religious, and still not particularly a millionaire.

Mysterious ways, indeed.