Keno

Meet the lottery agent of the future -- a machine.The Maryland State Lottery hopes to begin selling instant tickets from vending machines in the fall, in an effort to attract more players.Top state officials are expected next month to approve a contract to buy 300 machines that dispense tickets for the $1 "scratch-off" games.The machines would be divided evenly among the liquor shops, convenience stores and markets that currently sell instant tickets, and those that do not.Giant Food Inc., for one, is lined up to put vending machines in its supermarkets.

When any state relies heavily on gambling revenue, you live by the sword and you die by the sword.. -- Del. Howard P. RawlingsKeno is a killer. It is killing the hopes of officials that this fast-paced numbers game would produce a bonanza for state coffers. And it is destroying the lives of countless Marylanders lured into excessive gambling on this addictive lottery game.Since its start in January, keno has proved a big disappointment. Even with new outlets added weekly, the electronic game has fallen 43 percent short of revenue projections.

Members of Congress were given freebies to "Jurassic Park" and felt right at home there.The Director of Parks and Recreation seems to live in PG but comes to Baltimore for parks and recreation.Bill could forget new taxes and make everyone play federal keno.Tip to tourists: When in Wawnton, the place to go is Bawlamer. And vice versa.

Maryland is getting the worst of everything from its decisio to heavily promote its keno electronic numbers game. The new game is sapping other lotteries of revenue and is coming up woefully short in meeting its own revenue goals. Even worse, keno has created new gambling addicts -- Marylanders who can't control their spending on this state-sponsored activity.For these individuals the state's latest venture into legalized gambling is fomenting tragedy. In just four months, 35 anguished callers have telephoned the hot line set up by the National Center for Pathological Gambling in Baltimore to get help with their keno binges.

Keno arrived in Maryland bars, restaurants and bowling alley Jan. 4. Nine days later, somebody was already hooked.The first panicked call to the hot line at the National Center for Pathological Gambling in Baltimore came Jan. 13 from a city man who said his 39-year-old wife was consumed by the state's fast-paced, computerized numbers game.In the first four months since the Schaefer administration initiated keno, the center has received calls from 35 men and women who can't shake their desire to play it."

If the Serbs don't get you, the Croats will.Damon Buford will be a great player -- until they give him a multi-year, multi-million contract like any other bum.What if nobody bets on the Preakness this year because they already blew the bundle on keno?The generals and admirals can't be that down on Bill if they all want to be his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.Cheer up, Bill reshuffled the White House staff.

Be patriotic. Lose more money on keno.Bill is starting to drive a wedge between the people of Serbia and the Serbian demagogues of Bosnia, and why weren't we doing that a year ago?Instead of sending women into combat, they ought to be dropped on the Pentagon to straighten out the books.

Despite the controversial addition of keno in January Maryland's lottery games are likely to generate $30 million to $50 million less for the state budget this year than officials had hoped.Keno revenues are off, lottery officials say, partly because bar owners and other retailers were reluctant to install the electronic numbers game until it was clear the legislature was not going to prohibit it.But there are other problems as well:* Keno appears to be stealing players -- and money -- from other more established daily lottery games, such as Pick 3 and Pick 4.* El Gordo, the jackpot game pushed just before Christmas, was such a loser that a second El Gordo game was canceled, a $16 million double whammy of lost revenue to the state.

The 1993 session of the General Assembly was a remarkabl gamble with public policy that will be remembered less for what the legislators actually did than for the uncertain forces they set in motion.Legislators bet the house on health-care reform. They rolled the dice big-time on keno. And they bet $150 million that a spruced-up Convention Center will resuscitate Baltimore's faltering convention business. Yet nobody really knows whether the bodacious wagers will pay off.The health-care reform law is a blank slate -- an important social contract, but still a blank slate.

It's far from the proverbial sure thing, but an afternoon wager on a favorite at Pimlico might be the state's best bet.And the odds of winning the top prize in keno -- the fast-paced numbers game state lawmakers are counting on to help balance the public books -- are actually worse than hitting Lotto's elusive jackpot.A statistical comparison of Maryland's numerous forms of legal gambling shows a wide spread of probabilities. Although many people opt for one game over another for reasons other than odds, such as a love for horses, some bets make more sense than others.