I am sure as anything that they would be much happier, better people if they were still selling fruit and veg of a stall somewhere in London.

Not to mention the fact that I know a whole bunch of extremely rich people of varied ages and nationalities. They are either addicts(to one thing or another) depressed, isolated, lonely, angry and one thing is for sure they are all mean with what they have.
none of them are as happy as us poor people.

I don’t play regularly, lately (because I’ve got a raise and been making more money) I’ve been playing more often than usual. I have a decent paying full-time job and have a savings for a wedding (and a roth IRA) but occasionally when I do a side job I’ll take $20 on the weekend and buy some scratch-offs and quick picks. Occasionally I’ve one to break even, sometimes its a total loss, other times its in the middle. But I have fun! I see that I have a winning number and I cautiously scratch off the winning amount to see if I get 100k or 1 buck. Exciting in a way and I don’t miss the money. It’s not a total waste, as the proceeds go to my state’s education fund.

Tyler

The players are adicts and the operators are like the drug dealers……totally corrupt, and, yes I do play to find the corruption, and yes I’ve made some discoveries using some very powerful computer tools. Dont think they arent dipping into the pot, because they are……..bigtime. OLG operators are lining their pockets with your money.

i buy a lottery ticket every once in awhile. it would of course be nice to win, even if it’s not the biggest jackpot of all time. i can afford to lose a dollar every now and then in the hope that i am buying a ticket that will return more than the cost of buying it.

and a couple words on the merits of saving as a path to millionaire status. as the recent downturn has shown a great number of would-be retirees, savings is not a fool-proof strategy to financial security, especially as time turns against the saver. and it usually isn’t very good on short-term roi either. (and as far as i’m concerned, day trading is just as much of a gambling game as poker.) but really, saving money is also a gamble. buying a cd? that’s a gamble that the interest rate paid on it remains above inflation so that when it reaches maturity, it’s value would not have fallen too much. putting money into a retirement account pre-tax? that’s a gamble on the future tax rate being lower than current one. could go on and on, but pattern is pretty clear: virtually everything monetary is a gamble. now granted, the odds can definitely be vastly more favorable on some items and transactions than on others, but it’s still a gamble.

odds of winning lotto are something like 1 in 20 million. you have a better chance of getting hit by lightening which is 1 in 1.9 million.

Replace the word “working” with “The lotto” and you have a more accurate statement. Lotteries rely on people being either ignorant of probability or ignoring them because of the psychological thrill of the big win. THAT is a sucker’s game. There is a reason lotteries are called a “tax on the stupid.”

Play for fun, fine. Personally, I buy a ticket when the cost/benefit ratio is even or better. If the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 13 million, and a ticket is $2, a jackpot 26 million or over will entice me to buy. I’m not perfect, of course, and sometimes I will buy if it’s slightly less than even, but I only do so if I have extra “mad money.”

I don’t like to tell people what to do with their own money, but I do think people need to be informed when they make choices. Your “luck” is not going to change. Every ticket has the same odds of winning, and those odds are quite low.

“Instead of playing the powerball twice a week, I put $2 away a week (or whatever I would have paid to play). That way I’m not losing out. Also when I make a purchase and write it down in my check register I round up the price of the purchase to the next dollar, it has saved me almost $100 since I started doing it 2 months ago. Change adds up quickly!”

Not that I’m saying you should go spending $500 to $700 a week on it. I just wanted to point out that the lottery isn’t going to land you on the road to poverty if you can play it smart.

Now look at cruzer. He’s perfectly fine, even BETTER than before. He’s proof that if you’re INTELLIGENT, winning the lottery is great.

BUT people should limit themselves when playing. What I did was cut out a box of cigs a week to pay for the lotto..So now I’m getting healthier also..

Just wanted to share that..