Winston Smith Wins Powerball Lottery
(2002-12-25) — Winston Smith won about $300 million in the PowerBall lottery Wednesday. The man, whom George Orwell made famous as the protagonist in his novel “1984″, had not previously played the lottery.
In “1984″ George Orwell wrote:
“The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets.
“I know it’s just an opiate for the masses-fills them with false hope,” said Mr. Smith, “but it’s my opiate now baby. Who’s your Daddy? Look who’s wearing the big pants now! Woo-hoo!”
Although technically a fictional character, Mr. Smith said he was entitled to collect his winnings.
“It would be better to give the money to an imaginary person, than to all those people who bought tickets when the odds were greater than 120,000,000-to-1,” said Mr. Smith. “Any real person that stupid would squander it all anyway.”
