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I see a lot of people in stores spending as much as $50 on lottery tickets. Some of these folks don't look very prosperous and I wonder what they do without to buy the tickets. I've known a few people to win $25-50 or so but I have yet to meet a big winner.
How many big winners do any of you know? I'm happy for anyone who does win big but the odds sure don't look that good.
definitely not me! The most I've won is $5. Of course I've only played about 20 times for $5-10 over the last 20 years. That was enough for me to see....losing proposition. When the odds are one in something like 40 million, I don't like those odds.
A friend recently got 4 of the 6 numbers, missed the 5th number by one (she had 46, it was 47), and all she got was $106.
I play the slots a couple times a year and have lost several hundred over the years, broke even, and won a thou or so. So at least I feel like I have a chance, and it provides me a few hours of entertainment.
I have a "big winner" in my family (blood relative), they actually won 2 different lotteries. Both in the tens of millions (not sure if that's what they Claimed, or what the "face value" was). The odd thing is that they're both (married couple, now retired) college educated, had good careers, were set for retirement as it was and only played "for fun".
No one really talks about it, my family doesn't really have anyone who lives below a comfortable level. They do nice things with their 'winnings' though, very generous donation at a recent wedding (paid for the honeymoon), have paid off school loans out of the blue when the kids hit a year at their first job out of college, that sort of stuff. You'd never know they were lotto winners by their lifestyle too (modest house and cars).
I have hardly ever played since years ago when they first started & I heard the Lotto referred to as "the stupidity tax", & that just stuck with me. I have given into office pools when the amounts were huge & everyone had a share but not much else.
Funny, I just read an article a few hours ago about a multimillion dollar lottery winner who is in jail... for bank robbery! Seems he had all the bad tendencies when he won &... well, you can figure it out. He did have physical pain issues that led to pain medication that ultimately led to him becoming an addict without realizing it until it was too late & the money was gone & he needed to medicate & heroin is so cheap that he just robbed banks. His lawyer's firm specialized in lottery winners in trouble & mentioned how many of them go bankrupt, become addicts or commit suicide.
My OH engaged regularly in the "stupidity tax" or the "tax on the poor".
We won $150 once on a $1 bet ticket.
Big deal.
When it got to be $2/ticket, i pointed out that $2 x 2 times a week, x 2 games ( we have powerball and mega millions) was $8/ week, $415/yr, $4,150/ 10 years ( a trip to Hawai'i with money left over) and $8,300 in 20 years, which was a good downpayment on a car, my OH had to admit the ocassional $2 winner maybe twice a year was a bad return on investment.
Still, when the pot gets big, my OH will say " but you cant win it if you aren't in it".
So, occasionally I'll buy a big pot ticket, just to prove we dont win.
That satisfies my OH s curiosity and keeps us solvent, lol.
I thought about buying one of those million dollar tickets that seemed to be hitting all the time here in south texas, but when I saw that they were 20 bucks - no way jose!
One time I bought some tickets in New Mexico just for fun. Both tickets were winners - 40 and 20 dollars. That was about it for my ticket buying.
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