Posted on 02/15/2006 7:12:58 AM PST by grundle
I do play. For the price of $1.00, I can dream. Now twenty years ago, California started a scratcher game. I'd just finished a very messy, painful divorce.
My ex and her boyfriend played me like a fish. At the end, she got the house and one of our two boys. My first "weekend" visit, she'd invited one of his friends to spend the weekend with him (on MY time). I could see the handwriting on the wall.
A couple of months later, (a Friday which was my weekend with the little guy) I got home from work to find a message on my answering machine from my lawyer. The message was "come on down", my house had sold and he had a check for me.
Naturally I got excited, I was going to have my son for the weekend, and money to entertain him and his brother. So I rushed to the lawyer's office and I received a check for $16.94.... She got all the rest of the sale.
I went and picked my son up for my "weekend", and as he got into the car said "daddy, I want to come home and live with you and my brother forever". Well, you could hear my heartstrings snapping and I said okay, I'll save up enough money to finish paying the lawyer off, and save some more to do it. He said Okay dad.
The very next day, while shopping with my little boy, I bought 5 scratcher tickets. The Good Lord was looking out for my sons and I that day, and one of the Lottery scratcher tickets paid $25,000.
I called the lawyer's office and left a message on his machine, "start the process, I've got the money".
A month later I had custody of both my sons. This was in the People's Democratic Republic of Calif. where the communists rule and the courts seem to hate fathers.
So yeah, I still buy Lotto tickets (no scratcher anymore) just so I can dream.
People are buying a chance to live their dreams. Try as we might, we don't all end up Millionaires even when we work hard. So for $2 a week, and the chance to get million$, it's worth it.
No actually they aren't. Each drawing is a seperate instance and none of the previous or future drawings have any effect on it. The only way there is a 100% chance of somebody winning is if you organized enough people to buy every single possible combination, then somebody must win. But unless you sell every single number combination in one drawying there's always the chance of somebody not winning.
... On the other hand ....
Statistically we are all dead in a few years anyway --- why bother with anything
\sarc
When I win I put the ticket in the glove compartment and cash them in at the end of the year.
"Invest it how? Enron? Global Crossing? Google?"
... and after a year of stashing it in your cookie jar, go to any broker and say you want to buy ONE share of Google.
Because they blow it all instead of investing it, and because they choose the larger payout amount over years instead of taking the smaller amount up front and investing it.
Germany had a famous case of a guy who won lump-sum millions in their lottery -- twice! He went completely broke shortly after each win.
But the lottery isn't totally stupid as long as you play it as recreation: blow a buck on a ticket, $10 for the movies, whatever's worth it for you.
Maybe one of you Mathmagicians can correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the odds the same regardless of the size of the jackpot? (scratch, scratch) (:^D)
Actually when the jackpots get over $300 million it mathematically makes sense to play. A winning ticket would net you $100 million or so, while the odds are about 87 million to 1. Add up all the other chances to win prizes and it becomes a really good bet.
This is interesting.
We have a friend who is a math professor.
One day, he taught a class about the odds of winning that day's state lottery.
On the way home, he stopped at a convenience store ... and decided to buy his first ever lottery ticket.
A woman frantic to get in on the big win stepped in front of him and bought a handful of tickets. As a gentleman, and since he was mildly bemused by the whole process, he did not object.
He bought his single ticket.
Went home and stayed up that night to watch the drawing on TV.
He won $7 million, his share of jackpot split with two other winning tickets.
He's still teaching math but with a much more laid back attitude about taking time off.
It's a game with a very small admission charge. The anticipation and suspense can be fun. Nothing like taking off your shirt painting your numbers all over your body and watching the draw.
Save $50 by not buying power ball tickets. Double the number each day. Repeat each day for 100 days. In no time at all you will have saved a large fortune.
I call it welfare reinvestment....
and, just like a train wreck, one can't help but watch with morbid curiosity...(see: Richard "Oh, I had to pay taxes on that?" Hatch)
People don't realize $3 million is not all that much. You can live nicely, but not ravishingly. Once you buy that $50K sports car, some jewlry, a house, give some money away to family and friends, take a trip a good chunck of the money is gone. On top of that, taxes take out about 40%, which some people don't grasps until after they see there is not all that much money in their account. A thrifty person could live very nicely off a lottery jackpot, but not many jackpot winners are thrifty. They are too busy sticking $100 in the g-strings of strippers.
If that is larger than $1, then, on average, you can expect to win more than you lose. (Unfortunately, you also have to account for the probability of sharing a jackpot, which goes up with large payoffs.)
The odds of winning are so slim, that you really shouldn't take out a second mortgage to play all possible numbers.
This happened once, though. I can't find the story, but Voltaire and some philosophes at the time essentially purchased all possible winning numbers.
The people I know who have played the lottery tell me that they have won many times. So... the professor's math must be off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.