When Maryland started a $50,000-a-week lottery in late May, Baltimore's two afternoon papers, the Evening Sun and Hearst's News American, stood to benefit by printing winning numbers daily. Then the promotion-minded News American, which had a small lead in readership but lagged far behind the Sun in ad linage, came up with a shrewd gimmick. It began running daily lists of 51 "losers," numbers not drawn in the state lottery but for which the News offers cash consolation prizes ranging from $10 to $100. Sundays, the loser of the week gets a $500 jackpot.
For 2½ weeks, Sun executives watched a stampede...
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