Does anyone here play the lottery ?
I play the scratch offs, I travel the eastern third of my home state (Pa.) for work so I pick up tix on my travels, I spend about 80.00-100.00 a week, I have been keeping track of wins vs. losses and am down about 1,200.00 for the year so far.
.My quick math tells me I’m down about 30.00 a week.
Gambling of any sort is illegal in Hawaii which has been a gambling-free zone since it became the 50th US state in 1959. Not even bingo or horse race betting is allowed, and most state lawmakers seem to be convinced that keeping it that way is the best thing for society. It is one of just two states where there is no legal gambling whatsoever.
Good for Hawaii. It’s one thing for a state to allow people to do as they please. It’s quite another for the state to actively prey on those who can least afford it, and who are least able to recognize how bad it is for them. State lotteries are an abomination foisted on us by spineless lawmakers who want to spend more without telling their constituents they have to pay more tax.
I don’t trust these lotteries
I’ve never seen any lottery advertise how many people didn’t win or how many tickets were sold.
Decades ago my family played a slot machine that took in quarters but paid out many times the winnings because the payout was the correct number of coins, but in the wrong denomination, dollars!
Now on to the lottery-type winnings. Imagine you are buying scratchoff lottery tickets and you are good at math. You notice that the payouts are odd; so odd that you realize you have a better chance of winning than everyone else. You game the system which nobody seemed to notice was not calculated right.
Well, that DID happen and they even makde a movie or two about it.
… Lotteries are truly games of chance, everyone entering with an equal opportunity to win. Which is why investigators took note when a retired couple from Michigan, Jerry and Marge Selbee, made $26 million winning various state lottery games dozens of times. This is not a story, though, of a con, or a scam, or an inside job. No, this is a ballad of a couple from small-town America who did something that most people only dream of. They didn’t so much as beat the lottery odds as they figured them out.
Now according to the movie (which may or may not reflect the folling correctly), the Lottery Commission didn’t really care. Why? Well, theyare collecting lots more money for whatever groups are repesented, like education. It is not unlike a company who might offer a discount of 10% because their sales might double.
Why would I play the lottery since I already won it once i married my wife.
No, I just throw my money out the car window at 80 MPH.
The inevitable consequence is faster that way.
No, I can do math.
I buy maybe 4 lottery tickets a year with the expectation of nothing. It’s a entertainment and a bit of a tradition. $4 a year won’t do harm
I did an experiment for one year when the cost of a ticket for the time period was only $1.00 with the six number pick from the Georgia state lottery. I picked my own numbers each week purchasing only one ticket per week. I won $5.00 in a year. I did the math. There are 52 weeks in a year. I spent $52.00 while I gained only $5.00. Therefore, I lost $47.00.
Nope, I passed high school statistics.
The average odds of winning a state lottery prize is somewhere between one in 200,000,000 and 300,000,000.
There are approx. 330,000,000 people in the US and 28 are killed by lightning each year. In approximate numbers that means that you are 20 times more like to be killed by lightning than you are to win a state lottery.
So $GO FOR IT!$ – buy 20 and the odds are even that you’ll be rich or dead! And if you stay inside during thunder storms, the odds are better that lightning won’t kill you. 
Years ago we bought a few tickets and, no surprise, didn’t win. One of the tickets fell on the floor and the dog brought it over and dropped it at my feet. I asked her if she thought I should play again. She kept staring at me. OK, so I would play her birthday and because she was looking at my wife we’d use her birthday and then some other number to fill it in. Then the dog’s birth date as the Powerball because it was her idea. The next morning they announced the numbers and I was screaming at the TV. My wife came running in and I told that it hit all numbers except the Powerball. A $100,000 ticket. She said “You won?” Me: “NO. Why would I buy a ticket based on advice from the dog?” The dog literally shook her head walked away. $100,000.00!!!
A Philly - Poconos guy, I occasionally buy one ($5/year or less) just for the hoot. I’ve had winners , mostly not, but if I’m up or down it’s nothing noticeable. I’ve been doing this since the start of the lottery around 1970-none of the highly promoted major jackpots-they just increase the odds against you by spiking sales.
State lotteries are a tax on people who did not study their math.