AUSTRALIA: Half-Million-Dollar Prize

Roll out the barrel

We'll have a barrel of fun . . .

In Australia almost every day, and sometimes three or four times a day, lottery barrels revolve with the roar of express trains. Flagged to a halt, the barrel is opened, and a distinguished guest with a chromium-plated "extractor" begins withdrawing white-numbered marbles that bring small fortunes to the holders of correspondingly numbered tickets. Even the bored lottery clerks buy tickets, as recently happened in Western Australia when Clerk Neil Watts, writing down the numbers as they were drawn, shouted, "Hey, that's me!" discovered that he had won a...

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