{"id":69872,"date":"2011-03-30T04:00:35","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=69872"},"modified":"2019-09-02T02:46:22","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T09:46:22","slug":"the-lottery-an-investment-for-fools-with-bonus-lottery-simulator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/the-lottery-an-investment-for-fools-with-bonus-lottery-simulator\/","title":{"rendered":"The lottery: An “investment” for fools (with bonus lottery simulator!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years, I’ve done some foolish things with my finances. I’ve squandered money on comic books. I’ve speculated on risky stocks<\/a>, hoping to make a quick fortune. I’ve paid a gazillion dollars \u2014 or something close to it \u2014 in credit-card interest and bank fees. I spent large windfalls on the latest technological gadgets.<\/p>\n

No, I’m by no means perfect with money.<\/p>\n

One trap I’ve managed to avoid, though, is the lottery. Playing the lottery has never tempted me. Maybe it’s because I know the odds are always overwhelmingly stacked against the player \u2014 I know I can’t win the lottery<\/a>, so why bother?<\/p>\n

Caveat:<\/b><\/i> That’s not to say I’ve never<\/i> played the lottery. I used to play Sports Action, Oregon’s NFL-based betting game, once in a while. And I’ve bought an occasional scratch-off ticket. But when I do these things, I consider them one-time entertainment expenses, not paths to riches.<\/div>\n

<\/span>A Fool and His Money…<\/span><\/h2>\n

Not everyone is so lucky. For some, gambling is an addiction. It may start as innocent fun, but it grows beyond that, becomes a financial funnel, draining dollars from their daily lives. And some in dire financial straits may actually view the lottery as an investment strategy!<\/p>\n

According to this Wired<\/i> magazine article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

While approximately half of Americans buy at least one lottery ticket at some point, the vast majority of tickets are purchased by about 20 percent of the population. These high-frequency players tend to be poor and uneducated, which is why critics refer to lotteries as a regressive tax<\/a>. (In a 2006 survey, 30 percent of people without a high school degree said that playing the lottery was a wealth-building strategy.)<\/b> On average, households that make less than $12,400 a year spend 5 percent of their income on lotteries \u2014 a source of hope for just a few bucks a throw.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just how foolish is it to play the lottery? It depends on the game you play, of course. I once calculated that for every buck my brother spent on a scratch-off game<\/a>, he could expect to get roughly fifty cents in return. (That’s if he bought a bunch of tickets, of course. If you only buy a few, anything can happen.)<\/p>\n

It’s even more depressing to take a look at the odds for lottery drawings. Here, for instance, are the odds of winning the Mega Millions lottery<\/a>. They’re not good. You have about a one in forty chance of winning something. Your odds of winning the big jackpot (by matching the five main numbers and the bonus number) are roughly 1 in 175,000,000.<\/p>\n

But that’s pretty tough to visualize, right? I mean, 175 million is a big number. No worries! Rob Cockerham at Cockeyed.com whipped up a little widget<\/a> that lets you simulate the Mega Millions lottery. This is a great way to see just how fruitless the lottery is.<\/p>\n

I liked Cockerham’s widget so much that I asked the GRS technical elves (who live next door to the GRS social media elves) to build one for me. Here, inspired by Cockerham’s original<\/a>, is the Get Rich Lottery simulator. How much can you<\/i> win?<\/b> (Note that this widget is a little fussy in Internet Explorer. It seems to work fine in every other browser, though. Go figure.)<\/p>\n