The only time I bought a lotto ticket was when I was 18.
I just put $5 in the office pool for the BIGGEST LOTTERY IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.
I can’t be the only on here.
I took part in on our office pool as well. Yes, I know, it’s a tax on the dumb. Math tax. Etc…
All I know is that I don’t want to be the one guy that didn’t win in the office because I said no.
We have a pool going here at work. $10 a person. We got around 51 people in on it. This is probably the 5th time I have bought a lottery ticket, and this is the 1st that isn’t a scratch off ticket. Not expecting much, but it’s a interesting experience that I’ll give $10 for just this once.
I just checked the megamillions website. The prize is now up to $640 MILLION! Heck, the cash option is $462 million. If you estimated half of that will go to taxes, then amount comes to $231 million. The odds of a 1 dollar bit winning the jackpot are 1 in 175 million. Meaning, a one dollar bet actually has a positive expected value even before counting all the smaller prizes. Mathematically, you can’t afford to NOT play this lotto.
In reality, I bought 3 tickets and figured if God wanted me to be a millionaire, it would work out. If not, I pack a lunch one day instead of eating out. I cut a few calories, and help support the states education fund. Its the same as gambling at a casino (only with worse odds), don’t bet more than you can comfortably lose.
When I mentioned possibly buying a ticket in another thread (even though I very rarely play the lottery), it was strongly implied that I was a moron for even thinking about spending a dollar. So be prepared for the haters! ;-)
There is value in dreaming.
You can dream without buying a lottery ticket. But if you buy a lottery ticket, your dreams have a very tiny chance of becoming plans.
I’m in for $10. $5 in the office pool, $5 on my own.
Wow… and I thought quibids had a racket going.
I’m in. I only buy once or twice a year for fun, so why not?
I’m still of the “tax on the stupid” mind set. I’ll pass. :P
Employment Insurance.
That’s what I call the $6 I felt obligated to toss into the office pool. I work at a small law firm, around 50 folks total. 35 of them are in the lottery pool this week with the jackpot so big. While I have no expectations of winning, all I had to do was think for a second what would happen if this office did win. Forget not being in on the jackpot, I would be out of a job as 70% of the employees quit within a month, including partners. The firm would essentially dissolve, and I’d be unemployed thanks to the lottery.
I have to play, at least this week.
Playing every day is a tax on the stupid. Buying 100 tickets as if that will move the probability needle in your favor vs buying 1 is silly.
Playing once or twice a year when the jackpot gets amusingly huge is simply buying a candy bar or a soda’s worth of pleasant daydreaming for a few days. No harm in it at all, and for some lucky bastard(s), it’ll actually pay off.
Sure. It’s fun to imagine. :)
That’s an obscene amount of cash that no individual should be privileged to simply because they bought a lucky ticket. With that said, I put in $5 into mister lotto machine and did a quick pick but something tells me I missed something because I only got one row of numbers. I never played the lotto before but shouldn’t I have gotten 5 rows of numbers instead of one? I wanted to dick around with the machine to see if I did something wrong but the line was building up behind and I was beginning to feel like socially awkward penguin so I just bailed.
Bought a ticket for the halibut.
What does our government do with all this money? I thought they were poor. Hell, there were several local schools that had to consolidate recently because of “lack of funding.”
JMR, the guy behind you scored $4 in free picks. If your machines are anything like the ones near me you have to tell it you want multiples or it will simply give you a $1 line and then hold the $4 in credit in case you want instants, another lottery or change.
Well that’s what I get for not carrying my beta blockers with me.
Worse, if we understand anything about the way the universe works, the guy behind JMR is the one who wins. With JMR’s numbers. You know it’s true.
Assuming you’re the only one buying a ticket with the winning number. Hint: A lot more than 175 million tickets will be sold, and there will probably be more than 1:1 coverage for every set of numbers out there.
Not that I didn’t ask someone to buy me $10 worth of tickets too (we don’t have access in my state). But your math is wrong.
I won’t win. But it’s probably worth $10 just for the escapism of thinking about how cool it would be if I did win.
I suspect that much money would make most people miserable. Founding or backing some worthwhile enterprise, ok, but as consumption, disaster in waiting.
People need a windfall of, ohhh, $20,000 and a job where they’re valued, and a good family life. Beyond that, it’s just drug-fuelled-misery waiting to happen :)