I won the lottery!!!

[rskm1]

Yep, that's right, I'm $1 ahead by not buying a ticket.

Why do people continue to buy lottery tickets knowing full well that it's effectively a tax on stupid people?
It boggles the mind.
But I've come up with a plan.

Next time I run across someone with a ridiculous rationalization at the ready (e.g. "My odds of winning are better than if I didn't buy

Comments

[gothaminserenia]

Holy shit, an actual post!
*passes out*

[rskm1]

Heehee, I can still avoid the label of "blogger" if I only post occasional rants and tirades though, right?

[gothaminserenia]

*recovers*

Another idea could be to stand outside the convenience store & offer people a "special deal". You could sell them your losing ticket from the previous day's lottery for half price. Surely they'd go for this bargain, since they'd have only one fifty-millionth less chance of winning than with a current ticket.

;-P

*ooo, the evil gears are grinding now...*

[rskm1]

That sounds like a whole lotta work for a teensy profit, but I think I could build on that basic premise.

Buy a ticket today, with the winning numbers from YESTERDAY. Then offer to sell it to people until you finally find someone who knows what the winning numbers were yesterday, but doesn't remember today's date.

Seriously, the odds of running into such a person are dramatically higher than netting a profit from the ticket in the traditional way... especially considering that lottery players are predominantly delusional and bad with numbers.

It needs a plausible cover story though -- why would you be selling a "winning ticket"? I guess if you faked an accent and said you were an illegal alien, or claimed to be underage and thus unable to collect the winnings, that could work...

People spend hundreds of dollars a year on losing tickets; why wouldn't they give you $100 for a "winner"?

[dj_nitrogen]

I've worked up a philosophy that works in my head. In theory the only time I will ever buy a ticket is when the dollar amount is greater then the odds of winning. So, I spend a dollar to win 200 Million, with an odds of winning at 1:115 Million; that makes sense to me.... but like I said that is only in theory; in reality I've never purchased a ticket

[rskm1]

That's a pretty sound theory. I mean, at least you're thinking about it statistically, unlike most people who are just flushing $1 down the hopes and dreams toilet.

The flaw I see, though, is that ticket sales increase DRAMATICALLY when the jackpot gets into the triple digits, so there's a pretty good chance that your winnings will be SPLIT with somebody.

But as long as you pick numbers that nobody else would (e.g. "2 2 2 2 2 2"), you're pretty safe ;)