Old and busted: Lottery tickets that pay out cash prizes.
New hotness: Lottery tickets that get you a gay marriage certificate.

While I totally failed to get a new flat screen TV during the rioting and looting following the gay marriage apocalypse in New York, that doesn’t mean that the entire thing was a waste. We’re going to have a new lottery!

Fearing demand for same-sex weddings will be too great for the City Clerk’s Office to handle this Sunday, city officials have announced a lottery for weddings on the first day that gay couples can legally wed in the state.

Officials said couples could be stuck waiting in long lines all day and, though the city has added extra clerks for Sunday, ultimately would not be able to get married because of the high volume. The lottery will guarantee 764 couples — either opposite- or same-sex — access to marry at one of the City Clerk’s five offices Sunday.

The 764 couples to marry would be the largest number of marriages on any single day in city history.

Of course, as a friend just pointed out to me, any of these folks could just as easily head out of town and take care of things in some of the smaller, upstate towns. But I suppose that doesn’t have the same flair as doing it up in Manhattan. Reports continue to come in about the total lack of wedding planners available in the city and finding a hall for your reception (gay or straight) is pretty much a lost cause at this point. I suppose the lottery is a fair way to give everyone a shot at a license without collapsing in the record heat while waiting on the sidewalk.

What I’m waiting to see is the economic impact on the city for the third quarter. Expectations are high that there will be a temporary but serious economic boomlet coming from this.

Now if they could only pick up the trash on time…