摘要
Fifteen years ago,the people of Italy experienced a strange kind of mass hysteria known as"53 fever".The madness centered on the country’s lottery.Players can choose between 11 different wheels,based in cities such as Bari,Naples or Venice.Once you have picked which wheels to play,you can then bet on a selection of numbers between 1 and90.Your winnings depend on how much you initially bet,how many numbers you picked and how many you got right.Sometime in 2003,however,the number 53 simply stopped coming up on the Venice wheel-leading punters to place increasingly big bets on the number in the certainty that it must soon make a reappearance.By early 2005,53 fever had apparently led thousands to their financial ruin,the pain of which resulted in a spate of suicides.The hysteria only died away when it finally came up in the 9 February draw,after182 no-shows and four billion euros worth of bets.
