Today, Tapia is right -- the dream market is booming before tonight's Powerball lottery which has a jackpot of more than $500 million, the largest ever.

Powerball, which is sold in 42 states,Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands, has not had a winner in two months, rolling over the prize money and culminating in a ticket-buying frenzy today. Americans across the country who do not regularly play the lottery are shelling out for a one-in-175 million chance at Romney riches.

On days like this, when the promise of mega winnings turns the lottery into a news story, it seems its least pernicious. Local and national papers are flush with cheerful tales of comfortable, middle class Americans waiting in long gas station lines to buy a handful of tickets, joining offices pools and spinning cliched yarns about retiring in luxury on a desert island.

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