GUAMANIANS love to gamble. Half the island is addicted to bingo. They hesitate not a moment to hand over their cash at the Liberation Day carnival and village fiestas to gamble against odds that would make a Vegas bookie blush. They wager thousands on the outcome of cockfights in the only place in the nation where it’s still legal.

In the spirit of camaraderie and good, clean fun, I propose an islandwide lottery contest to allow those who think they know how things work around here to show their stuff. It actually works more like a football pool where entrants guess the outcome of future events, in some cases plugging in a date and time of day for their guess. I entered a guessing game like that at the Tucson Home Depot early this year that offered big prizes for whoever most closely predicted the date and time the Tucson temperature would first hit 100 degrees. That happened sometime last month. I was in the right month but apparently the wrong day.

Here’s my suggested list of events and the (very informal) rules. All you need to do is predict when these things will happen. The date is enough – don’t worry about the time.

Event number one: New GDOE Superintendent Fernandez gets fed up and bails out.

Event number two: New GMH Administrator Vergas bails out or gets fired.

Event number three: Gov. Calvo announces the first round of layoffs.

Event number four: The Legislature votes to increase the GRT.

Event number five: The governor attempts to raid the Tourist Attraction Fund.

Event number six: The first GovGuam pay-less payday happens (withholding the government contribution as in “net pay” qualifies).

Event number six: The governor attempts to raid the GovGuam Retirement Fund (actually, he’s already trying to manipulate the GGRF in a couple of ways but probably won’t succeed).

Event number seven: The Legislature further broadens the definition of taxable property to include forms other than real property: personal, intellectual, etc.

Event number eight: Pangelinan, Guthertz, Won Pat, Respicio and Cruz receive their final legislative paychecks.

Bonus question for extra points: By how many millions of dollars will the administration overestimate section 30 revenues this year? (They get paid in advance, intentionally overestimate and pay it back later when they get caught).

I have my own ideas about when some of these things might happen but it wouldn’t be fair to share as it might influence your deliberations.

In full disclosure, I admit that I dusted off the old crystal ball and tweaked it a bit for some down-the-road visibility. I learned that neither of the expensive new GDOE and GMH honchos are likely to last two years – maybe less, depending on how subservient and unethical they can force themselves to be.

If I could only get the ball to tell me when the next big natural or man-made disaster will happen either here or in Japan I could probably make a good guess about the GRT, layoffs and pay-less payday timing. All it will take is a little nudge in a bad direction. A major storm, earthquake or terrorist event in either location and the tourist business goes south again.

Remember the big earthquake 20 years ago when nearly all the hotels closed down, some for more than a year? Two actually fell down. How about the Japan earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster last year? Something like further delay or downsizing in the military buildup could also do it. GovGuam is now financially right smack between that proverbial rock and hard place. There’s no borrowing authority left, three quarters of the GRT goes to debt service for the new bonds, and any real flexibility in funds programming or reprogramming by the administration no longer exists.

And by the way, you can thank all those named above for putting us where we are today. Remember in November.