I've always heard that the lottery was a tax on people who are bad at math.
I have never bought a lottery ticket.
🙂
N
ÛÏThe Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made their living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons.Û
Û¥ George Orwell, 1984
If I based all my spending decisions on the rational chance of fiscal return per dollar spent I wouldn't own any fishing poles.
I have been known to buy a lottery ticket on rare occasions. Most of the time I forget and hear the big prize ticket was bought in another state.... which makes me glad I didn't waste my money.
I buy them for stocking stuffers at Christmas.
I buy a scratch ticket about once every four years, something tells me that today would be a good day to pick one up.
My old boss was a gambler and spent more than I used to afford on lunch weekly on lotto tickets. He would hit a couple hundred dollar prize every now and then.
I always wanted to use the lottery in teaching probability. But I couldn't because gambling-related materials were forbidden in our schools. The real rub for me was that our local school district took lottery money from the state but denied access to the state lottery site for school computers.
Of course, any student could show you how to get around the filter, but it was the principle of the thing that got me.
The damned paradox is that if you buy a chance the odds that you gain nothing are immense, but, on the other hand, if you do not buy a chance then you are guaranteed to gain nothing..................you simply keep the price of the chance to waste in some other fashion...............like supersizing an order of fries.
There was a period in the '80s when I was a regular Lotto buyer, both on my own and in an office pool. I don't think my own tickets ever paid off for more than $50 or so -- with a semi-regular sprinkling of $5 wins -- but the office pool won about $1500 once. I undoubtedly paid in many times what I drew out, but as long as they made it easy I was content to have that one-in-a-gazillion chance of winning big.
But after a few years the CA Lottery made a change in subscription practices, and buying the tickets became too much of a nuisance, so I stopped playing. Nowadays I only buy them for birthday gifts and stocking stuffers, and we never seem to cash in the $5 wins that we do get.
Pure entertainment. Like buying a movie ticket. Definitely not a good retirement plan.
I have never bought a ticket and never will. Most people have more money in their pocket than I have spent gambling in my entire life. I know it can be an addiction, but I just don't get it...
I have an acquaintance who is a bona fide "high roller" in Vegas. He is naturally lucky - practically everything he touches turns to gold. If I had his luck I might feel differently.
Really wanted to post something quite smug about being good at math, but Jimbo's fishing pole analogy really hit home.
Steve
I buy lotto tickets about once every other month - just enough to have a reason to have "what if" dreams. When I lived in WA, I got enough $50, $75, and $100 winners that I'm sure that I at least broke even on their lottery. Since living in CA, I haven't won a total of $50 in the 20 years I've been here.
That must mean that all my luck is being saved up for the big one!
For me the lotto is like golf. You play well enough to want to play again but you never get good enough to enjoy it. I quit both years ago. A good friend of mine won a really big one years ago, still runs his business and has given much of his winnings away to those less fortunate.
eapls2708, post: 378287, member: 589 wrote: I buy lotto tickets about once every other month - just enough to have a reason to have "what if" dreams. When I lived in WA, I got enough $50, $75, and $100 winners that I'm sure that I at least broke even on their lottery. Since living in CA, I haven't won a total of $50 in the 20 years I've been here.
That must mean that all my luck is being saved up for the big one!
"The big one"? I hope that isn't the big earthquake that will separate CA from the mainland you are referring to:'(
A friend's daughter hit the big payoff in California several years back. She didn't change her lifestyle one bit. But, she sure helped her parents have a comfortable life ever since.
"The Big One"
Think Fred Sanford clutching his chest and hollering: "This is the Big One Elizabeth! I'm comin' to see you!"
