What's the most you've won? I won $40 on a $1 ticket today and it made me pee my pants because I NEVER win! Now go ahead an burst my bubble with your $1000 story.
I know a guy personally who won $50,000. He said it made him approx +$1000 lifetime and he plays probably $100 a week on them. He tracks which games he plays and how much he wins and loses. He's the only person I know who plays this much and he was way behind before hitting the $50 grand.
The only people I ever see win big on scratch off lottery tickets are the ladies who go to the store every day, basically scratch them off at the store, cash out the winners, buy some more, etc. etc. etc. . They usually have some relationship with the clerk at the store to where they talk and talk and talk because they are so in with the clerk at that point because of all the lottery scratch offs she has boughten. Meanwhile, the rest of customers are lined up behind this person waiting to buy something...while she talks about how many square footage her house is or something trivial....while she uses the money she just won to buy more scratch offs. She will start to walk out the store and realize she just won again...back in the store to buy some more. I see that crap all the time. Yes, I think it's a pathetic. I suppose they eventually win the big ones with that strategy. You or I never win the big ones. It doesn't help that, even after all the big prizes are cashed out, they continue to sell the lot of the scratch offs for that particular scratch off.
You know, the thing I don't understand about people who are addicted to scratch off tickets: rarely are prizes large enough to be life changing. At least with the regular lottery, there is the potential there to win enough money to retire, start charities, help others in need...live comfortably for the rest of your life, etc...
Actually it's a poor people's tax...I played a long time ago and the most I won was $100 on the scratch off...I won $100 or so by picking 4 of the 6 numbers...My mom won $50 about a month ago...My ex's grandmother picked 5 of the 6 and won about $1500 like 10 years ago...
I never buy scratch off tickets, unless they're the fake ones from Ebay that make it look like you've won $10,000....that is, until you read the back and it says something like: Mail to: Santa Claus 666 North Pole I can't remember the rest, but those things are awesome. My friends and I used to drop them in the cafeteria at school during lunch, watch the kids scratch them off, go crazy, only to be let down once they've read the back. This kind of happened to me a few months ago. I found a target gift card, the back hadn't been scratched, so it was never used. I called the number and the recording says...."Your current account balance is seventy five (at this point im peeing in my pants) cents." Man, I was po'd, but I guess I deserved it. Oh, the most I've won is $15. Pugs
I actually found a stack of lottery tickets on top of a gas pump while I filled up one time. They where about 5 $20 tickets. I won a total of $160 dollars. Pretty good day.
Poor people who don't exercise common sense or simple math skills, however poor they may be, are probably idiots. Do they make dumb decisions because they're poor or do their dumb decisions make them poor? Chicken or the egg type deal I suppose...
I've never understood the 'stupid people tax' thing. As long as you can afford it, and know the odds are long what's the big deal? It's not like I was going to invest that $2 in some balanced mutual fund. Can a mathmaticians even dream?
