Chicago Sun-Times: Chance for a quick score brings out our true colors

Shortly after midnight on New Year's Eve, a friend of mine pointed out a $20 bill nestled in the confetti right at my feet. "Hey, twenty bucks!" I said, proving that my keen powers of observation had made it to 2004.

I scooped up the bill, held it aloft for a moment and looked around, in case someone was saying, "I know I had a twenty in my shirt pocket..."

Nobody cared. They were dancing and drinking and making out -- in some cases doing all three at the same time, which can get messy.

So, in the tradition of the late-great Harry Chapin, who was handed $20 for a $2.50 fare, I stashed the bill in my shirt. Later I used it to buy drink tickets, and can I just say that I always enjoy walking around with a stack of drink tickets because it makes me feel as if I've won big at Skeeball, adult category.

Maybe I should have commandeered the microphone from the band to announce that if anyone was looking for $20, please report to the Lost and Found. Or I could have tipped one of the bartenders or one of the guys carting ice around -- but I was already doing that. Of course I don't need an extra $20 and I couldn't have cared less if someone else had spotted that $20 first, but if I'm almost standing on free money, I should pick it up, right? Finders keepers.

But there's a difference between found money and becoming a thief of opportunity.

An instant license to steal

Longtime visitors to Page 11 might recall that we've talked a time or two about thieves of opportunity, i.e., law-abiding citizens who, when presented with a chance to pocket someone else's money, can't resist. They would never pick your pocket in a crowd or hold up a liquor store, but when temptation knocks, they answer.

A glitch on an airline's Web site allows customers to buy round- trip tickets to Europe for $25 -- and thousands rush to take advantage of the mistake. The doors fly open on an armored truck and bags containing $100,000 in cash tumble to the highway -- and only $67,000 is returned. That sort of thing.

We may or may not have had a prime example of this last week in Chicago, when a clerk from the Chicago Board Options Exchange was asked to bring a stack of lottery tickets to a nearby convenience store. According to the store's owner and eyewitnesses, one of the tickets was worth $175,000 -- but that ticket is now missing in action, and two traders have filed a police complaint against the clerk, claiming she pocketed that winning ticket.

Maybe it's all a big misunderstanding. Or maybe, allegedly, possibly, the clerk had a moment of weakness and came up with an instant and terribly conceived "plan" to keep the ticket for herself and redeem it later. However this plays out, there will be bad feelings forever on both sides.

Two-armed bandits?

Around the same time the CBOE lottery story was breaking, we also heard about some possible thieves of opportunity at the Trump Hotel & Casino in Gary.

For a few hours last Dec. 7, bettors were able to take advantage of several misprogrammed slot machines that were literally doubling their money. According to a spokeswoman for the casino, the glitch somehow occurred when the slots were programmed to accommodate the new $20 bills. So if you fed $10 to one of the machines, it would spit out $20. Feed it $20, and it would spit out $40. You didn't even have to pull the lever or hit the "SPIN" button.

Security officers became aware of the problem after they saw a man win cash without spinning. The slots were reprogrammed, and now you actually have to risk money to win money.

What's most intriguing here is that not a single player peeped a word about the problem. (The Trump Hotel & Casino spokeswoman said the financial loss was insignificant. She also offered the charitable explanation that players were so into their gaming that they didn't notice the glitch.)

Slots players are like horse whisperers; they know their machines. They'll tell you if the slots are "loose" or if they're cold, and they'll work the same slots for hours in an attempt to discern some kind of pattern. There's no way that these players DIDN'T realize the machines were screwed up. Even a novice would have realized something was amiss. Getting double your money back at the slots without even spinning is like sitting down at a blackjack table where you've already got a 21.

I can hear the rationalizations already: "Those slots are rigged to rip us off, so for once we had a chance to get some of our money back." Yeah yeah yeah. But deep down, you know better.

Some people rise to the occasion. Some people trip all over it. Lord knows I'm not among the world's good-deed batting average leaders -- but in the interest of good karma, I'm going to give the amount of my New Year's loot -- that's 20 American dollars -- to the next person I see who looks like he could really use it.

I'd throw in my extra drink tickets as well, but I don't think they're worth anything any more.

"Ebert & Roeper" airs at 10:35 p.m. Saturday and 10:30 a.m. Sunday on WLS-Channel 7.