The odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 15 million. (2)

The odds of winning the Lotto Jackpot are about 1 in 14 million. (3)

If one person purchases 50 Lotto tickets each week, they will win the jackpot about once every 5,000 years. (4)

If a car gets 25 miles per gallon, and a gallon of gas is bought for every Lotto ticket bought, there will be enough gas for about 750 round trips to the moon before the jackpot is won. (5)

It is three times more likely for a person driving ten miles to buy a Lotto ticket to be killed in a car accident than to win the jackpot. (6)

The odds are greater to be:

Dealt a royal flush on the opening hand in a poker game (1 in 649,739) (7)
Killed by terrorists while traveling abroad (1 in 650,000) (8)

Die during an average life span from:

flesh-eating bacteria (1 in 1 million)
heart disease from eating a broiled steak a week (1 in 48,000)
a lightning strike (1 in 30,000)
cancer from eating a peanut butter sandwich a day (1 in 5,000) (9)

As a responcible person who also enjoys the thrills of gambling, I only use expendible funds from my entertainment budget. I usually only buy a single chance for anything over $4 million.

I am a statiscal aberration when it comes to gambling – I have been lucky enough to score 5 out of 6 (for $1,200) and several 4 of 6. I also hit a 25c slot machine once for $175,000 which I invested (mostly!) wisely. So call me stupid AND lucky!

With a small child in the house I no longer hit the casinos, but I still get my $1 lottery ticket because I enjoy dreaming what I’d do if I won… (I’d be smart about it)

And you can’t win if you don’t play.

Going short on a lottery ticket. I love it!

BTW: Clever Dude, I donno if this is a joke or not, but unless you are sick or elderly, the odds greatly with you that you’re going to live, not die. Check out the mortality tables for someone your age.

Going short on a lottery ticket. I love it!

BTW: Clever Dude, I donno if this is a joke or not, but unless you are sick or elderly, the odds greatly with you that you’re going to live, not die. Check out the mortality tables for someone your age.

Question — are you confident that given the lifetime odds of 1 in 1.8 million you will die from a snakebite or lizard bite, this will actually never happen to you?

http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm

Answer — just about always, the answer is YES, I am confident that over my lifetime, this will NOT be the manner of my death. No how, no WAY!

So then I ask why, and they say the odds are JUST TOO GREAT for such a thing to happen. I say, well then, if the odds are 1 in 200 million that you will win the lottery (two hudred times worse odds), WHY WOULD YOU PLAY?

Then the say…….(see many entries above)

1) I’m not immune to maybe just this once temptation and I hate feeling left out when I don’t play (which is 99.99% of the time).

2) In general, I think lotteries promote the populist attitude that economic fortune is all about luck. While I do believe fate plays a major role in life, I also believe people should aggressively control the things they can control (not that I’d have to convince this crowd). I also think the “attitude” leads people to view those more fortunate than they are as simply “lucky” without accounting for exactly how it is thru brains, balls, or hard work they got to where they are (to my earlier post).

Too many people chalk their poor finances up to fate – the same people wasting money on lotto tiks, new cars, and flat screen TV’s, while complaining about being behind on CC payments.

3) I just don’t think govt should encourage or prey on peoples’ worst impulses – there is something plain ole sleazy about state-run lotteries (not that private ones are any better of an idea). Isn’t govt supposed to protect us, not steal from us (I’m so naive).

4) The complete arbitrariness of it really really bugs me. But, I guess that’s what a lot of people like about it. Anybody can win whether they put 2 seconds of thought to it or they spent years developing a complex number generating system (I used to know a guy years ago who’s probably still working on his computer-modeled lotto guessing system).

5) And most of all: I never win. Perhaps its my defeatist attitude that is keeping me from winning the lotto jackpot that is rightfully mine.

I know it’s a tax on the stupid, but it’s good entertainment for me and my co-workers. We like to fantasize what we’d do with the money.

I’m all for a tax on the stupid since it paid for college! An exaggeration to be sure, but my parents sell lottery tickets and it is quite a money maker, especially large jackpots like the Powerball one.

Blaine does have pretty convincing math as far as keeping my money to myself. Hm……

I tell people that I have a system for winning the lottery with every drawing (a win being categorized as anything that nets me more money than I put in.) I take the money that I could spend on a lottery ticket, and instead put it in an interest bearing savings account. Look at that, I’ve just outperformed 99.9% of all lottery players! I not only get to keep that dollar, but I even get to keep the 5.25% interest that I earn on it (minus taxes which would have to paid on the lotto tickets as well if you won something…)