The Yin and Yang of Gambling.

Byline: Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop

Passing a traffic accident recently, my taxi driver asked me to check out the cars' license-plate numbers. I thought it odd but assumed he wanted to be sure no one he knew was involved. Nope. It turned out to be just the latest macabre expression of Singapore's national sport: the Toto 4D lottery mania.

How do you play? Easy. If you pass an auto wreck, say, slow down and scope out the plates of the cars involved. Then buy a lottery ticket and plug in these "lucky" numbers to maximize your chances of winning. You see, superstitious Chinese gamblers believe that for everything bad, something good will happen. Combine that with the famous Chinese love for games of chance--casinos aren't allowed here (yet) but Singaporeans spend hundreds of millions a year betting on everything from horse racing to mah-jongg--and you get a phenomenon that can sometimes be, well, unsettling.

Some recent examples: A year or so ago, Ladan and Laleh Bijani, 29-year-old Iranian twins joined at the head since birth, died in Singapore during surgery to separate them. Punters used their ages and birth dates to play the lotto. (Spookily, one permutation came up trumps, bringing a small windfall to the winners.) When an 8-year-old girl named Huang Na was abducted from a crowded market last year, and later found murdered, gamblers used the tragedy to bet on 4D numbers related to the case. And on the day of the funeral, a thousand mourners showed up, some to give thanks for their winnings, others to touch little Na's hearse, hoping that some of her "money luck" would rub off.

It was probably only the intense media interest that prevented anyone from setting up a gambling operation at the wake. Believe me, that would not be uncommon here. Playing cards has always been a ...