Galery

1

Victoria Mindova

Greeks rarely ever rely on their luck, was the conclusion that we reached after a research of GRReporter in several lottery centers PROPO in the capital this week. Contrary to our expectations that the crisis and the overall financial stagnation will make the common Greek citizen to try his luck in order to get out of the accumulated debts to banks and lenders, the study showed a serious decline in the games of chance. "On Sunday afternoon a year ago we had at least five or ten people who were betting on football games and watching them in the store. See how it is now," says ruefully the wife of the owner of the PROPO on Dervenakion Street in the Athens neighborhood Nea Chalcedona.

The only person in lottery center is sitting alone and watching the game on the television. She explains that people now are saving their money and making better plans on where to spend it. The rise in VAT and excise duties affect not so adversely the pocket of the Greeks but rather their way of thinking, she says and explains: "When people know they will pay more money in the super-market, at the petrol station or for electricity and water, intentionally or accidentally they start saving from everything else." According to her the most powerful betting remains Joker and Lotto, which cost 50 cents a column, however if the players were placing between fifteen and twenty coupons before, now they place one or two.

The same opinion is also sharing the owner of a lottery center in the next neighborhood Nea Philadelphia, who owns his business for 15 years now. Big bets are now placed rare, people prefer to give small amounts. "If I’m luck I will win from the first time, so why spend so much money, they say to themselves and place one or two coupons," he explains. The owner says that most visitors are customers from the neighborhood, but they spend less time in the center now. Besides the decreased interest in gaming, now people do not stay here as they did before. "Once upon a time people came and stayed for hours. They would spend a euro, they would see some frineds, and make a bet. Then they would argue a bit about football, and while this was happening and they would drink some of the soda, I offer in the shop, " he describes the usual routine before the crisis. Those who visited me by tradition today are coming again, but in most cases only to greet me he says with derision. He says that during the summer the work has significantly decreased. Each year from mid July to late September the work is slow because people go on vacation. "When they return they have no money and are busy with the beginning of the academic year of their children and with other problems. This year is particularly bad, but we will know with certainty from October onwards," he explains.

While the owner of the lottery center in Nea Philadelphia tells me about the woes of his profession in the center entered two customers. One was middle-aged woman with a white curly dog on a leash, who bought a lottery ticket from the National Lottery. The second was a man around the sixties, who played two coupons of the Greek Lotto. "I play every week for thirty years now, but so far I have not won more than 60 euros," he told GRReporter. According to him people play not to win but simply to dream.