One of the most famous short stories in American literature is The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. It's a true gem of a story - part horror, part suspense, gripping and tightly written and very much worth your time to read if you've never had the pleasure.
There's another lottery horror story out there, too. Here in The Old Dominion, CNN reported yesterday that the Virginia Lottery was continuing to sell tickets for scratch-off lottery games that had already paid out their jackpots...essentially, lottery tickets with a zero percent chance of winning. A Virginia Lottery official said with a straight face, "We absolutely have always been very open and honest with our players about the way our scratch tickets are distributed. Yes, there were times when there was a scratch game out there that might've said 'zero' in terms of the number of top prizes, but our players knew that" (the emphasis there is mine). Yes, the Virginia Lottery assumes you will be stupid enough to knowingly play a game with no chance of winning.
Of course, your chance of winning a major lottery jackpot is just about the same as your chance of observing meaningful dialog and principled compromise between Congressional Republicans and Democrats. But don't let that slow you down.
Lotteries have been described as a tax on people who are bad at math. If that's true, as the poster child for mathematical illiteracy I'm due for a serious refund. My comfortable retirement would be assured if only I could get back all the money I've spent on lottery tickets and office pools over the years. Whether it was the Lotto in Germany, the Readers' Digest and Publishers' Clearing House Sweepstakes, or any number of scratch-off tickets in various cities and states, I've probably invested a gazillion dollars over the years for a return on investment of about .0000001%. If I were watching someone else recklessly invest money like this, I'd call them stupid.
Oh, well...with my firm belief in the ability of optimism to triumph over common sense, I'll keep playing those lottery games. I may not get rich, but at least I won't end up with a Shirley Jackson-style first prize.
But you never know...that may end up being the next Republican faith-based initiative.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
4 comments:
or the next Obamabased faith-based initiative.
So much flip-flopping already in this campaign, I feel like I'm at the beach.
I am one of those people that never wins anything that hinges on luck. I'm not saying I'm unlucky, because I'm one of the luckiest people I know. But, I just have no luck when it come to things like lucky draws, lotteries, raffles, gambling in casinos, gambling at home, etc....
Still, for some reason, I buy a Scratch-It each birthday.
You have to think of lottery tickets as entertainment. You need to buy them days before the drawing so you can get as much mileage as you can out of them. I.e. telling your friends when you win your going to move away and never talk to them again, etc.
Also, here's my post #14.
14 - Power ball chances
Odds of losing power ball - 146,107,962 to 1.
Probability of winning - 1 in 17,532,955,440.
Odds are given to make you think you have a better chance of winning. Odds are calculated much differently than probabilities.
If you buy a Lotto ticket, it means you are not actually insane when you say, "When I get rich..."
You're just very unlikely to achieve your goal. On the other hand, I still buy MegaMillions faithfully.
The usual suspect.
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