The Most Unusual Lottery in the Galaxy

JITA - There is a secret many would prefer to stay untold and unknown. Bartenders in Jita stations can sometimes become fabulously rich, overnight.

It is a legend fast growing in the minds of the many service industry workers in the heart of Caldari space; a bartender goes to work in a fashionable bar located in one of the seemingly myriad stations orbiting planets in the Jita system. Two weeks later they retire to live the rest of their lives in comfort on a the proceeds of a single tip.

Stories like this one have driven a rush for service jobs in the popular capsuleer market hubs, and with such an influx there has been a corresponding crash in wages for service industry workers such as bartenders, waiters, valets, and even maid services.

"I have a husband and two kids planetside and they rely on my income here to survive," says Marra Isato, a waitress from a popular restaurant in an orbital station around Perimeter II. Marra says she benefits little from the State's sparse welfare programs, but that her coworkers (mostly Gallente and Minmatar immigrants) are faring even worse. "The State never believed much in welfare programs; if you're unlucky you just disappear and become poor forever."

The problem of the working poor in the welfare-thin Caldari State is only made worse by this recent influx of normally high income, well educated workers, who have the time and means to become a service worker in hopes of striking it rich.

Despite strong denials by State officials, the rumor is not entirely without basis. Antonin Omeata, a bartender in Jita's Caldari Navy Assembly Plant, ended up purchasing a large private island on the planet below, after mixing a drink for a man who turned out to be one of the capsuleer markets biggest day traders.

"He said he'd just sold a big shipment of some high end modules." Antonin claimed during a rare interview with The Scope. "Something the pirate factions had modified or something... anyway he didn't make much sense after he had a few drinks." Athough there are no further details on how he made his profit, what is certain is that millions of people now want the same break that Omeata got, and some of them are willing to accept next to nothing as wages to get it.

Caldari State officials said they had no comment on this turn of events, and that no economic relief package was planned to ease the situation.