Damn Lottery

[bjarvis]

Bad news: we didn't win the $179 million Powerball lottery jackpot last night.

Good news: No one else did either, and the pot is now $203 million.

I have some uses for dollar figures like that... :-)

Comments

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

Consideration #1:
Odds of winning if you never buy a ticket: zero
Odds of winning if you buy a single $1 ticket: non-zero.
Yes, the odds of winning are inifinitismally small, but there's a huge statistical difference between zero and non-zero.

Consideration #1A
Odds of losing if you never buy a ticket: zero
Odds of losing if you buy a single $1 ticket: better than even.

I don't know the rates for whatever outfit runs your lotteries are, but the Ontario Lottery Corporation pays out 41c for every dollar intake. Meaning that for every $100 investors customers put in, they will get back $41, and lose $59. Sounds like a mug's game to me.

There's a large difference between losing zero and losing over $30 a year, assuming one $1 ticket a week. There's a huge statistical difference between losing nothing and losing 59% of your investment.

Lotteries are a tax on stupidity ...

I didn't say that. I'm just pointing out that they're a tax on those who can't do statistics.