On 2016-01-12 6:23 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
> On Sunday, January 10, 2016 at 10:28:26 PM UTC-5, Cheryl wrote:
>
>> I think I'll buy a few more chances this week since no one won.
>
> Mathematically speaking, the difference between buying 1 ticket
> and 5 tickets is not worth the extra $8.

I always figure that your chances are 50-50. You either win or you don't.



> (Of course, mathematically speaking, the ROI on even one ticket is
> so close to zero that no statistician would consider it worth buying
> even one.)

I used to get lottery tickets for free at a local gas station with every
purchase of 40 litres of gasoline. That was hard to do with my Civic,
but they would run a tally for me, so it might take two or three weeks
to get my ticket. I only won once, and it was only $5.


People are funny about gambling, and I have had enough examples of it to
keep me away from it. Years ago when the Provincial lottery game out,
tickets sold for $5 and that was quite a bit 40 years ago. I was went
for coffee with some co-workers and one of them bought one of those $5.
He won two tickets. With those two he won two more, and it went on like
that. He ended up with about 1 dozen tickets that he won on that initial
$5 ticket, and he was thrilled. A few weeks late they drew the lucky
numbers. He did not win any cash, but he was still happy that he won
all those pieces of paper.


I still chuckle about my niece whose co-workers did not let her in on
their office pool, so she went out and bought a scratch ticket on her
own and won $1 million.


> But if it makes you happy, go ahead and buy more. My husband does.
>
I tend to think of them as a stupidity tax. It is a government
fundraiser for people who expect to win big. Most are just paying the
government for nothing. However, I have to revisit that. I know two
people who have won $1 million, a neighbour won $2.1 million, and I know
a guy from the Y whose father won IIRC $4 million.




> We don't buy tickets very often; just often enough to give our
> "what I'd do with the money" fantasies a little more immediacy.
>

I have to confess that I caved a couple weeks ago and bought one for a
pot that was up to $60 million. I guess I was tempting the fate of how
my life could be forced to change if I came into big money.