How often do you play the lottery?

[djm]

Maintaining a sincere desire for someone else to get the money.

Thank yuh. Thank yuh vera much.

djm

[Paul Reid]

We play 649 or Super 7 a few times a month. I found these pages interesting:

http://lotteries.olgc.ca/howtoplay.do?game=649


This one I found most interesting (select a lottery and then click on frequency) because the most frequent numbers are not grossly disproportionate to the less frequent numbers. Statisticians must love this stuff!

http://lotteries.olgc.ca/viewFrequentWinningNumbers.do

[herbivore12]

I remember reading a while back about a study that compared the happiness levels (whatever that means) of recent lottery winners and people forced to undergo dialysis treatments. If I remember right, the lottery winners got really happy for a little while, the dialysis patients quite depressed for a little while, and then both returned to their pre-lottery/dialysis levels of general happiness in a short time. It's as if we have a sort of thermostat for well-being, which works to try to keep us at a particular level of contentedness. Not too happy, lest we do manic over-optimistic things, and not too depressed, lest we just give up.

I didn't find the exact article, but an overview of it and related studies is here.

That said, I'd rather be at my "happiness setpoint" and well-to-do, as opposed to poor . . . (Oh, another article pointed out that one situation in which the well-off showed a significantly higher level of contentedness was when confronted with a sudden health crisis. A health crisis could send a poor person in to several years of debt and depression and anxiety, whereas the well-to-do were able to remain feeling fairly secure. Sensible enough.)

[bradhurley]

there is no other investment for this amount of money that can pay back anywhere near the same returns.

The key word there is "can." If you took the same $10/week and invested it in a fund with an average return of 6%, at the end of 30 years you'd have almost $35,000. With the lottery, odds are good that after 30 years of buying tickets you would have shelled out $15,600 for nothing. That's a difference of more than $50K.

The thing is, you could play the lottery every day for a few thousand lifetimes and never win. When I was younger I used to buy Megabucks tickets occasionally in Massachusetts, and I almost always chose the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, in that order. A friend of mine watched me filling out my ticket once and said, "but that's impossible; you could never get that number combination." I pointed out that it's no less likely a combination than any other.

All that said, it's true that you know you'll never win if you don't buy a ticket. And there's a bit of a thrill that comes with daydreaming about being struck by that particular lightning bolt. But I'd rather put my money somewhere where it's a lot more likely to grow.

[djm]

The key word there is "can." If you took the same $10/week and invested it in a fund with an average return of 6%, at the end of 30 years you'd have almost $35,000. With the lottery, odds are good that after 30 years of buying tickets you would have shelled out $15,600 for nothing. That's a difference of more than $50K.

The trouble with this type of thinking is that:

a). $35K isn't enough to buy a decent car anymore. In 30 years, it probably won't even buy you a bicycle.

b). I have never seen a mutual fundI could afford that paid 6%, and I have never gone into a mutual fund that I didn't lose money on (don't even start on my luck in investing in stocks).

c). I probably won't be alive in 30 years. I want the money NOW while I'm young enough to blow it in joy. Having money just to hold it has no attraction for me. Money is for spending, not necessarily frivilously, but certainly for enjoying the benefits it can bring.

djm

[lenf]

I've never bought a lottery ticket or any of the related rub scratch whatever things. I understand that one is rather more likely to be struck by a bolt of lightning than making a sizable win in a lottery. Of course, I read this morning about a woman in a park who was struck by lightning...

I suppose I just don't think that winning some grand amount of money would be of much benefit, and from what I've read of some winners, can cause a lot of harm. We all think, of course, that *we* could handle the money well, that we wouldn't lose our heads, but I'm guessing the winners who later suffered thought the same.

The lottery makes sense if one's idea is that life is a competition to get the most stuff, or that stuff makes one happy, or that money can bring security. I don't quite believe any of those, so, no lottery tickets.

[brianormond]

-I buy lotto tickets to enjoy the cheap dream, and play slot machines for the illicit thrill, rather like the child in Mark Twain's "American Drolleries": skipping Sunday school to fish and somehow failing to drown, get hit by lightning or otherwise come to grief while his reverent counterpart falls off a stump while admonishing the bad boy and breaks a leg.

-There's something special about unearned income. A paltry amount becomes fiendishly attractive when a tang of forbidden mischief comes with it.

[BillChin]

there is no other investment for this amount of money that can pay back anywhere near the same returns.

The key word there is "can." If you took the same $10/week and invested it in a fund with an average return of 6%, at the end of 30 years you'd have almost $35,000. With the lottery, odds are good that after 30 years of buying tickets you would have shelled out $15,600 for nothing. That's a difference of more than $50K.

The thing is, you could play the lottery every day for a few thousand lifetimes and never win. When I was younger I used to buy Megabucks tickets occasionally in Massachusetts, and I almost always chose the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, in that order. A friend of mine watched me filling out my ticket once and said, "but that's impossible; you could never get that number combination." I pointed out that it's no less likely a combination than any other.

All that said, it's true that you know you'll never win if you don't buy a ticket. And there's a bit of a thrill that comes with daydreaming about being struck by that particular lightning bolt. But I'd rather put my money somewhere where it's a lot more likely to grow.

Don't do the 1,2,3,4,5,6. Too many other people have the same idea, so if that combo hits the jackpot will be split about 1000 ways. So instead of a nice big jackpot to stew over, it will be more like a five number combo payoff. Other bad, bad combos are lines up, down or across, or arrow designs. If tempted to do one of these, it is much better to use the now ubiquitous "quick pick."

As for the $10 a week, that takes too much discipline and at the end of the time period after taxes and inflation, it isn't that much money in any case. Now if it is $200 a week, that is another matter, because that amount will make a big difference in quality of life.

[lenf]

Don't do the 1,2,3,4,5,6. Too many other people have the same idea, so if that combo hits the jackpot will be split about 1000 ways. So instead of a nice big jackpot to stew over, it will be more like a five number combo payoff. Other bad, bad combos are lines up, down or across, or arrow designs. If tempted to do one of these, it is much better to use the now ubiquitous "quick pick."

As for the $10 a week, that takes too much discipline and at the end of the time period after taxes and inflation, it isn't that much money in any case. Now if it is $200 a week, that is another matter, because that amount will make a big difference in quality of life.

Yup, and not only are lines up, down, across or arrow designs bad, bad, bad combos, but those sorta fishhooky looking designs, and fertility symbols, anything that remotely resembles Masonic imagery, and the letter "P." If you are tempted into any of THESE combo traps, you should, rather, jot down every third letter from a page of G.K. Chesterton's Autobiography (which, I mean, hardly counts as an autobiography...) and transpose that into Base 6, skipping back 2 on the alternates.

If you win anything using this simple system, I expect a cut.

[Lambchop]

You can also use those numbers that come in fortune cookies.

[fiddleronvermouth]

there is no other investment for this amount of money that can pay back anywhere near the same returns.

The key word there is "can." If you took the same $10/week and invested it in a fund with an average return of 6%, at the end of 30 years you'd have almost $35,000. With the lottery, odds are good that after 30 years of buying tickets you would have shelled out $15,600 for nothing. That's a difference of more than $50K.

Ooh, that's good! What can I get for five or six bucks a year?

[rebl_rn]

I've bought one lottery ticket in my life - that was in Ireland, when my friends gave me a pound and insisted I buy one. Of course, I didn't win anything.

I got a scratch-off once as a gift and won $1.

So, since I've never spent any of my own money, I guess I've come out ahead.

[Cynth]

I've bought one lottery ticket in my life - that was in Ireland, when my friends gave me a pound and insisted I buy one. Of course, I didn't win anything.

I got a scratch-off once as a gift and won $1.

So, since I've never spent any of my own money, I guess I've come out ahead.

Yes, you have. Very wise investment policy!

[straycat82]

I'm not optimistic enough for lotteries.

I'm to pessimistic for lotteries.

[lenf]

Note in the news today about a woman who just won 4+ million in a lottery. Currently she lives in a trailer park, but now wants to buy a house. Her husband doesn't want to leave the park, so her answer was that he can stay in the park and she'll move to a new house without him.

OK, now if someone walked into a grocery store in Delaware, bought a can of some particular chicken noodle soup, and the soup did as much damage as a lottery ticket can do, there would be a nationwide race to get that brand of soup off the shelves before anyone else was hurt, right?