Do you purchase lottery tickets

[Fiyero]

Picture a stack of 1,000 phone books, each with 1,000 pages, and each page with 150 names and numbers printed in three columns. The odds of winning the lottery is akin to correctly picking one phone number out of that enormous pile. If each 150,000 name phone book was 3" thick and they were all stacked together, it would be 250 feet high, or roughly 20 stories. And for only $1 per try, you may make one guess.

[Indy Coug]

Picture a stack of 1,000 phone books, each with 1,000 pages, and each page with 150 names and numbers printed in three columns. The odds of winning the lottery is akin to correctly picking one phone number out of that enormous pile. If each 150,000 name phone book was 3" thick and they were all stacked together, it would be 250 feet high, or roughly 20 stories. And for only $1 per try, you may make one guess.

That's why it's going to be so sweet when I win. Then, when I win, I will be so rich and obnoxious, I will pay someone to set up a 1,000 phone book stack and make a huge bonfire out of it.

[BoylenOver]

Every time I visit my grandparents in Colorado, we buy the scratch-off tickets. The most any of us have ever won is $5, but for whatever reason my dad loved doing it, so it's a nice childhood memory.

[il Padrino Ute]

Translation?

EJ hearts you.

[Moliere]

Translation?

You're a numbers guy. I'm a numbers guy. I just like different numbers.

Oh, and talking about returns on a $150 million jackpot. I don't know many people who have the type of money to invest that would get them in a position to capitalize on the statistics of that one.

[Indy Coug]

EJ hearts you.

Indy Coug, you're a friggin' idiot.


-- Hermann Rorschach

[byu71]

Picture a stack of 1,000 phone books, each with 1,000 pages, and each page with 150 names and numbers printed in three columns. The odds of winning the lottery is akin to correctly picking one phone number out of that enormous pile. If each 150,000 name phone book was 3" thick and they were all stacked together, it would be 250 feet high, or roughly 20 stories. And for only $1 per try, you may make one guess.

I would be willing to skip lunch for those odds.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

If I am working in the office on Tuesday or Wednesday whoever goes across the street to buy mid-afternoon drinks me or my work mate buys 2 lotto tickets. So far we haven't won anything.

[scottie]

I probably spend $50 a year on powerball/mega-millions tickets (family trips to Idaho + work/pleasure trips to Cali = ~ 5 times a year, $10 each time).

[jay santos]

Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets. I didn't understand them previously. I assumed every ticket would be a net zero gain. So how does it work? Say, the powerball is up to $100M. All previous purchasers are eliminated? So only future buyers have a chance?

Is this right?

Chances to win

1/( X - Y)

X = total future payout
Y = amount already paid in or the amount the powerball is at today


What determines the end of the game?

[Indy Coug]

Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets. I didn't understand them previously. I assumed every ticket would be a net zero gain. So how does it work? Say, the powerball is up to $100M. All previous purchasers are eliminated? So only future buyers have a chance?

Is this right?

Chances to win

1/( X - Y)

X = total future payout
Y = amount already paid in or the amount the powerball is at today


What determines the end of the game?

Your Powerball ticket is only good for the next scheduled drawing. The odds are in the neighborhood of 150,000,000 : 1 of winning the jackpot. In the unlikely more than one winner is found, then the money is split. I'm not sure how they determine what the next jackpot amount is going to be, but the minimum jackpot is either $10M or $20M.

[bluegoose]

Our office has a person that, once the Powerball jackpot is over $100M, will collect $2 from everyone that wants to play and purchase a bunch of tickets. This is the first place I've worked that I've seen that happen.

My (former) next door neighbor was part of an office pool for 8 years. They could contribute something like $100 at the beginning of each year. Once a month, one person would take a certain amount of money and buy however many tickets they had allotted for that month.

Last year they hit the big one and split about $100 million between the group. They lasted about 2 weeks in our 'hood before they got the heck out.

[RC Vikings]

I do. I realize the odds are way out of wack but when it gets over a $100 million I always drop a couple of bucks. I just figure it's my donation to the school system.

[Scott R Nelson]

I'll admit to spending approximately $10 on lottery tickets during the 20+ years that I've lived in California. Occasionally when the jackpot has been really big I figured I would invest $1.00 and if it was meant to be I could win - I understand the odds. I've collected a total of $2.00 on the above investment, which is about as I would expect.

Then a couple of years ago I gave a lesson from the Gospel Principles manual about the need to work for what we get and it became quite obvious to me that winning the lottery wouldn't fit well with the life that I'm trying to live, so I resolved that I would not participate in the lottery ever again. I've never tried any other form of gambling.

I still occasionally like to watch World Series of Poker though. But I expect that even if I knew what cards everyone was holding and what was coming up in the deck I would probably still manage to lose to those guys.

I don't really understand why gambling is so popular in this country.

[clackamascoug]

When it gets over 75 million, I've been known to plunk down $2 for a shot at the money. I find the event has $2 worth of entertainment value just thinking about winning, after all, you can't win if you don't play.

My parents have a guy in their ward, who was on hard times, and ended up getting divorced. 6 months after the divorce he wins 25 million, and 6 months later marries a gal 15 years younger who's nice to him, and as my dad says, is easy on the eyes. He's now retired, and works in the Temple.