Mega Gazliion Buck Fever

[Rahmota]

For those of you who sell powerball tickets and to a lesser degree megamillions tickets may the force be with you as I am sure there is going to be some stories to tell after this weekend. With the powerball at 300million and the megamillions at 200million every nut that scrape together a buck will beout getting one.

And yes I was one of those. Being in Southern ohio and close to kentucky I was doubly bl;essed as I could get one of each. I went out in the middle of the day to do this so I wouldnt have to deal with all the afterwork crew stopping and getting it. So my local gas station was not too bad. Just the normal folks there and nothing major yet. I go out and go down to kentucky and stop at the first gas station across the river. Going in there is about a half dozen ohio tagged vehicles in the lot so apparently I'm not the only one to ahve the idea. I get in there and the line for Lotto extends a good 5 people deep. Not too bad for the middle of the afternoon I think.

But each of those 5 people got at least 50 bucks worth of tickets each. I get up there and get my one ticket and when i ask for it the guy behind me snorts and goes "Just one? Feeling lucky?" I turn shrug and say "Ones all it takes my man. And If I loose then I aint out but a buck." Somehow I dont think he liked that idea. I stuck around to see how many he got and he blew 100$ on them.

I mean seriously the odds on the megamillions for wininng the big payout are 1 in 175,711,536. The Powerball is just as bad with odds of the big payout of 1 in 146,107,962. So to change your odds significantly in your favor you would have to buy how many tickets? More than what would be sensible I am sure. (Statistics and odds making are not my strong suit )

So good luck and hope your machines stay up and running and dont run out of paper at an innoportune time.

[Bright_Star]

That's what I do....I just buy ONE powerball ticket. People who buy a ton of those are fooling themselves. They'd be better off giving that money to charity if they can afford to waste money like that.

[Gurndigarn]

I saw the title and thought "Oh, no, hunting season already?"

[powerboy]

Once a week, I always get about 1-2 of the tickets. If I lose, then I am out only a couple of bucks

[Broomjockey]

Well, if you buy two tickets, you double your odds, but after that, it quickly becomes not worth it.

But I remember hearing in finance class in High School, that these people who buy 10 or more tickets every week, that if they instead put it into a safe investment, they'd have something like a million dollars by the time they were 65, whereas they're likely to have won less than $100,000 by the end of their time, including free ticket value.

The lesson? Play for fun. Not to get rich

[Seshat]

The lesson? Play for fun. Not to get rich

Unless you're a mathematical genius. If so, watch the documentary 'Breaking Vegas', and decide what to do after seeing how Vegas and the gambling machine reacts to mathematicians infringing on their domain.

There's only three ways to reliably get money out of a gambling system:
1. Own it.
2. Tax it.
3. Work there.

[Catwoman2965]

It amazes me as well to see people blow $50-100 or more on lottery tickets. When the jackpot gets really big for MegaMillions, i might spend $5, but never any more than that, and ususally only $1-3. So far, I think the most I won was about $7...woo hoo. I also won't make a special trip to get the tickets; If I happen to be in a grocery store, or near somewhere, I'll get some.. If not, next time.

That being said, for the $250 jackpot on Tuesday, I may make it a point to stop and get a few.

[Jack7957]

I've been playing MegaMillions since it first started, using the same set of numbers, I believe about 5 years ago. I think my total winnings is around $10 - $15 now.

[Rahmota]

Gurn: Nope not yet. Ohio buck fever isnt until december. Little side note in my local high school the teachers never planned on tests or doing much work that first day of season as there would be about a 50-60% absentee rate. Both males and females. It was always funny when one of the girls would score a bigger buck than one of the guys.

I'll play a buck here and there on the ohio lotto but will only cross the river and get a powerball if its a big one or I'm already in kentucky. So far in my life I've probably won close to 500 bucks on the lotto. Not sure what my expendetures is though. Probably somewhere about the same.

Broom: Thats the way to do most things.

Oh and as you can tell since I am conscious and functinoing I didnt win. Not even a single number. But at least no one else won the big one so theres tuesday.

[symposes]

If I could come up with 2500 bucks right now, that I never had to repay anyone. I could be completely content. Thats all I need to eliminate my debt. I dont give a flying monkey dropping about being spoiled rich. I just want out of debt.

[Bella_Vixen]

Today, we sold over $1100 in Powerball on 1st shift alone.


Death to the lottery.

[sms001]

For those of you who sell powerball tickets and to a lesser degree megamillions tickets may the force be with you

We live in a strange country. Remember when lottos first started and TEN million was a huge pot? Now we're so blase that I had no idea the two biggies were up there again. It doesn't seem to get overkill on the news until it is well over 200 mill. Imagine that someone could win a quarter to a third of a billion dollars and no one really gets excited.

When selling them:

I too would buy ONE (maybe one for the father-in-law, he got such a kick out of it) and get teased about it. Some people just don't understand math. I'd irritate SCs even more when asked why I didn't buy more by telling them I wouldn't really want that much money - you'd never make another new friend without wondering if they really liked YOU, you'd be worried about your family's safety....
I did hear just about the best justification for even that one dollar expressed by a customer once: "It's worth a dollar to just daydream about what you would do with the money for a couple of days." Probably the smartest thing I've ever heard about gambling.
What I DID enjoy about selling was the strange little superstitions that would pop up. When it got over a hundred mill I'd start the shift by printing up a few single picks and a few five picks to keep by my register. Some people just wouldn't take them. As though "fresh from the machine" was somehow luckier Or people who would want to quick pick the front numbers but put in their own powerball number. (What, you're only partially psychic?) Or those who would get testy about their place in line - yes, being in front of or behind someone in one of the 18,000 locations that sell tickets means you lose. Humans are funky.

[Kiwi]

Primary school when I was ten, we had 20 raffles to raise money for our school camp.
Tickets were $2 a pop which was a lot of money for a kid in NZ back in 93! That was like a weeks worth of lollies.
It was the height of the troll craze, one of the raffles were two stuffed troll dolls that were $50 each... no way my mum could afford that but she let me work for 4 hours on the weekend doing chores to earn that $2 for ONE ticket.
A rich spoilt brat in our class had her daddy buy 50 of the raffle tickets and bragged about how she was going to win...

I won with my one ticket.
I know it was luck but at the time it felt like all of my had slog had paid off, that people who worked for what they desperately wanted got ahead over people who were handed things on a silver platter.

[Seshat]

I did hear just about the best justification for even that one dollar expressed by a customer once: "It's worth a dollar to just daydream about what you would do with the money for a couple of days." Probably the smartest thing I've ever heard about gambling.

Why, thank you!

(That's why I sometimes buy a lottery ticket. The entertainment value of the 'realistic' daydream. I could do the same daydreams without the ticket, but it just doesn't feel the same. The fun is only worth one ticket, though!)

[Catwoman2965]

I always say, I'd be happy with ONE million (after taxes of course!). Its enough to make me fairly comfortable but not so much money that everyone i know come crawling out of the woodwork, looking for a handout. Of course, if i ever won a gazillion dollars, I would share with family and friends...but i wouldn't even come forward to claim until I'd met with an attorney, financial advisor, and changed my phone number to unlisted! (you can see I've put some thought into this!). Only after I had all my ducks in a row would I acknowledge that I was the winner...but then again, the odds are so low that I most likely won't ever have to worry about that!

In fact, I have to remember today to purchase my one or two tickets, while at the grocery store...and then I just have to wait until Tuesday!