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People are all excited around here about the big lottery draw tomorrow. The jackpot is $30 million (yes, I know, it's Canadian dollars; convert that to $23 million US), and unlike American lotteries, this is a tax-free lump sum. You win the $30 million, you get a cheque for $30 million. No hidden bullshit or shell games where they pay it out over a 30 year period.

Time for a refresher course on lottery stats: it's a 7-number lottery, with 49 possible numbers. This means that each ticket has odds of 1 in 49!/42!/7!, which works out to 1 in 85900584. You get three numbers for each $2 ticket, so each ticket has odds of 1 in 28633528.

Naturally, people are going apeshit buying tickets anyway. But despite logic, I do understand why they do it. It's only a couple of bucks; why not? I think people who buy lottery tickets get a certain kind of enjoyment out of the fantasy, if ever so brief, that you might win. Who hasn't imagined what he would do with a giant sum like $30 million? Hell, I've toyed with the idea of buying a few tickets myself, even though I don't normally play the lottery and I know exactly how bad the odds are.

Are you one of those people who buys lottery tickets? If so, do the odds faze you at all? Do you seriously believe you can win? Or do you just buy them for that fleeting moment when you can fantasize about winning?

I don't buy lottery tickets because of the reasons you mentioned (poor odds, lengthy pay outs etc..) BUT I do buy scratch offs occasionally, those odds are much better to win. Even if I only win a dollar or two it still feels fun to win, the most I buy at will be maybe two scratch offs at once. The most I have ever won is $20, I personally win about 50% of the time when I do play even if that 50% is me breaking even.

A tax-free? Lump sum?
I'd buy a ticket just for the hell of it, especially since it's only a couple bucks.

I know the odds, but I am alvays in the office pool just because I don't vant to be the only one out IF we win big, Hey it's only ~$3 / week so...

Don't the order of the balls matter?

I dont ever buy lottery tickets. However, I find myself fantasizing about winning almost week now. Even if it is a small amount like 25,000 or something. This is all because I dont have steady work.

Not me.

Compared to the excitment, atmosphere and level of social interaction of, say, a casino, or the bookmakers, the UK lottery is a horrible, miserable way to gamble. It works by a piece of paper you hand over at the ticket-selling outlet. Each lottery day, non-players are inconvienienced by huge long lines of lottery-players purchasing their tickets, since the outlets usually sell other much more interesting things like petrol and cigarettes. The lottery players shuffle miserably forward, clutching their pieces of paper and the payment, wordlessly pass it over to the ticket-seller, wordlessly accept the ticket and shuffle off again. They look and behave for all the world like citizens of the Soviet Union during it's worst days queuing up with food coupons, or participants in some horrible beaurocratic system from the 1950s.

I do however play the bonus-ball competition down my local, mainly because 1) the Landlord ("the Landlord's name is Keith and he's a BASTARD" - that's a song) threatens me with a barring if I don't and 2) I can irritate said Landlord by subverting his precious bonus-ball sheet by writing all manner of graffiti and crap all over it - favourite technique is to very very carefully draw on a space for ball number fifty (or whatever is one more than there are in the UK system, I forget) and wait for someone to purchase it. And 3) The look on said Landlords face in the unlikely event of me winning, as he is forced to reach deep into the till and hand over the best part of 50 quid.

Never bought a ticket, don't plan to. It'd be nice to win, fo sho, but it'd also be nice if Natalie Portman suddenly knocked on my door and wanted to suck my cock, but it's not going to happen.
It's not that I care terribly much about my two dollars; it's more that I can't be bothered to visit a 7-11 for nothing.

I buy tickets when the jackpot gets really high. I figure, hell, I got as good of a chance as anyone else, to turn two bucks into multi millions of dollars.

I play lottery and I know that the chances are really low. 1: 140,000,000
Maybe I shoud stop playing because I already got lucky once(won 50k).

I'm in a little syndicate at work. It's $5.50 a week, it gives us slightly better odds than if we bought separately, and it breaks up the week a little to pick a few numbers. I don't hold up to see if i win however...I'll find out in due time if i end up being a millionaire

I buy tickets when the jackpot goes over 20 million (Happens alot here in florida.) get this: I went into San Marco Market one day to buy some coke. And I saw a guy buying a lottery ticket. No biggie. I didn't (Jackpot was like 8 million) and that guy Fucking WON. Solo win, too. Didn't share it with anyone. next week he comes in all dressed up, with a new truck and he's buying a million dollar house on the St. John's. He gives the clerk who sold him the winning a paltry 100.00.
that seems pretty shitty to me. I would've at least paid for his school (He's in school studying to be a pharmacist (Not the dispenser guy, but a real honest-to-god pharmacist (Whatever that implies) the was he described to me "Not a pharmacy Tech". Or I would have bought him a car. I know he didn't have anything to do with my winning per se'...but it just seems the thing to do...

Lotteries are a tax on the stupid. ALTHOUGH, once in a blue moon i will buy a 1 or 2 powerball tickets if the jackpot climbs to some insane amount of money. The powerball hit $300 million on day last summer, and my logic is i know i have a snowball's chance in hell, but it's only a dollar and i only play once every six months or so. What I can't stand, are the idiots without a pot to piss in blowing a hundred dollars on lotto tickets a week and then bitching about being poor. morons.

I bought a scratch n'win ticket once and had a net profit of 7 bucks. But that's it.

I have bought the occasional ticket...something on the level of once every six months. If I win...cool(now just have to report it)...if I don't eh.

Aside from that big jackpots or not don't exactly sway me given that I don't have 6 or 600 million....and I wouldn't mind either.

BoredShirtless wrote:Don't the order of the balls matter?

This is probably the Super-7 lottery, so no. If it did matter, the chances of winning would be 5040 times less likely than they already are.

-is poor- Why would I spend my money on such things when I have to worry about food and rent? (Please no comments on the smoking.. that's all passed.)

~ver

I have $4 invested in the $30 million super7 lotto today. Its with a bunch of coworkers.

Its not because I feel I have more chance of winning, or because I feel I really need that $30 million. Its really just a social thing: I pay $4, we joke around about what we'll do with our million, some say what they'll do to their boss when the quite, etc, etc. I would compare it to spending $4 on a drink while socializing. If there weren't a work pool, I wouldn't buy one just for myself.

I've also spent money in a few casinos in Montreal and Vegas, each time was with a group of people, and its all just good fun. I've only come out once with extra money (an entire $5) but each time we'd be laughing and having a good time and I felt I got my money's worth of enjoyment.

My wife bought two tickets in her work pool as well.

It's a fairly harmless fantasy, as long as you aren't investing hundreds of dollars a year into it - a few tickets when the pot is huge is enough.

Besides which, I have no right to complain after I spent 70$ on Halo a week ago and finished it in 24 hours. It's on a shelf now, and won't likely come out until some decent mods become available.

By rights, her frivolous spending has an infinitely higher chance of paying off than mine does, and it cost a lot less.

I'm up about $400 after ticket costs on Super 7, so yes, I've put a few bucks into this week's draw. It's only a couple bucks a week and I only play when the jackpot hits 10 million or more, so even if I wasn't winning it's not exactly a drain on my finances. BTW, this 30 million is mine, don't even bother buying tickets since you'll just be contributing to my retirement fund.

If it gets big, yeah, I might buy a ticket.

Somebody mentioned that scratch off odds are better, but surely not in any meaningful way. The only time I've ever held a lottery ticket it my hot little hands was when I won 50 at a vendor golf outing.

So I had 50 tickets, all with a face price of $2. I scratched off everyone of them, and got the princely sum of $17. Your odds are way, way better playing black jack in a Vegas casino. The house only takes an average of 3% of your action that way. And if you learn to count cards properly, you can take them for 2% until they throw you out.

My Grandfather always called lotteries the "poor man's tax". I'm inclined to agree. I don't play the lottery.

Besides, I already got my thrill when I was 9 and was going to win $11 Million through the publisher's clearing house. I built myself up for that so much that when it fell through, I was stuck with this huge sense of disappointment. Since then, I'm very cynical of such things.

Meh, I'm not about to invest hundreds of dollars per jackpot to try to win. If it gets insanely high, I'll run up to Idaho and buy a couple of tickets as a weekend endeavor.

Those who break open their piggy banks to buy tickets are truely pathetic but buying a ticket once in a while is fun.

I'd rather bet on an NCAA office pool or something. I really can't be bothered to take a special trip to the convenience store to buy lotto tickets. I have promised myself, though, that if one of the games hits $500 million, then I'll buy a ticket.