I Won the Lottery! Hooray!

Published 9/2/07 (Modified 3/9/11)
By MoneyBlueBook

Okay, not really. In fact I didn't even play this time around. Come to think of it, I've only played the lottery twice in my life before. I'm writing in response to today's lottery news announcement that four winning tickets were sold for the estimated $330 million Mega Millions jackpot, one each in Maryland, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia. After taking almost half of it out for taxes and splitting the pot four ways, that's barely $50 million apiece. Mere chump change. :)

My Powerball Tickets

I remember the last time I bought a lottery ticket a few months ago - it was a Powerball ticket and it was when the Powerball jackpot had ballooned to a ridiculously high amount. Since Powerball wasn't sold in my state, I had to drive across the border into a neighboring state to snag one. After looking around, I finally found a gas station that sold Powerball tickets. My greedy and overeager brain sprung into action. Why buy one ticket when I can quintuple (five times) my chances by buying five! Delighted at my own ingeniousness and completely oblivious to my faulty mathematical logic, two minutes later I was walking out of the gas station with a potential winning ticket in my hand. On my drive home I started thinking about what I'd do with the money if I won, and then I started to get really excited. New house perhaps, how about 2? A new car maybe, get 2 as well. Never having to work again and setting my parents up for life, that would be great. How would my life change I wondered? Would it be for the better or would it be for worse? How would I handle the stress of having my friends and distant uncles beating down my door, trying to get me to hand them some wads of money.

Back To Reality

I guess I was spared the agony of having to make such challenging decisions because I didn't win after all. I wasted one and a half hours driving around at night for Powerball lottery tickets for nothing. But they say you've got to play to win. I'll be back, but I'll probably wait until the jackpot hits half a billion dollars. Then it'll be worth it. Heh

Note: Statistically, there is a huge difference between 0 lottery tickets and 1 ticket, but your odds aren't much improved with the addition of more tickets, unless you were to acquire millions of them. Basically, just buy 1 for amusement and a short term thrill.

I don't play the lottery regularly, but does anyone else?