Sales and marketing expert Edward Ugel, a graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, spent his late twenties and early thirties working among the nation's most infamous lottery winners and gamblers in the high-stakes lump sum industry. He has also written for The New York Times and contributed to PRI's This American Life. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife and daughter.
Ugel is a self-proclaimed gambler. He's also a born salesman. So it was a good fit when he landed a sales job with a firm that pioneered the lottery "lump sum" industry. Basically, his firm stalked and then preyed upon cash-strapped lottery winners (annual payouts to these jackpot winners could be very small). To be fair to the firm, buying out the lottery annuities of these winners did solve their immediate cash problems. But in a nearly unregulated industry, the discounts to the winners were steep-and consequently the profits to the firm were enormous. Ugel's story is a familiar one. He basically just needed a job, landed one to which he was constitutionally suited, and learned to play dirty (because that's how the industry worked). Eventually, he got sacked and repented of his ways-thus the book. Ugel's natural showmanship makes for entertaining reading. He does little to pretty up his misdeeds (heck, they were legal) and offers comical vignettes of his rendezvous and run-ins with prospective clients while delivering a well-deserved scathing indictment of the government-backed lottery system. Given the popularity of legalized gambling, this book should circulate briskly in public library business, collections.-Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin, Whitewater Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
"For anyone who's ever dreamed of winning the lottery, this is a terrifying look at what really happens when someone hands you that huge cardboard check. Ugel's writing style is terrific." -- Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and Busting Vegas"A jackpot of sleaze and hilarity" -- The Oregonian (Portland)"A breezy, funny writer.... Maybe this eye-opening book will galvanize a movement.... By turns amusing and alarming." -- Kirkus Reviews"His tale is a colorfully written account by a self-proclaimed overweight, chain-smoking, Krispy Kreme doughnut-eating, fanatical gambler....You will lick your chops, eager to hear the sordid woes of winners gone broke from spending sprees." -- USA Today"Ugel's natural showmanship makes for entertaining reading. He does little to pretty up his misdeeds (heck, they were legal) and offers comical vignettes of his rendezvous and run-ins with prospective clients while delivering a well-deserved scathing indictment of the government-backed lottery system." -- Library JournalUgel, a gambler since age 19, tells a sordid tale of gambling addiction, and we all have much to learn from the author's important perspective on the proliferation of gambling opportunities. Written in an informal, sometimes humorous manner, this book contains excellent information for library patrons. -- Booklist"[A] sordid--and highly engaging--tale" -- Wall Street Journal
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