Quote:
Originally Posted by buzzy
A friend used to say that you have the same chance of winning whether you buy a ticket or not.
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That is an excellent point. The odds are so low that your chances of winning a top prize jackpot are effectively zero. A good example is the Mega Millions game. The chances of winning the big prize are approximately 1 in 175 million (per Wikipedia). Imagine if each Mega Millions player purchased five tickets, and all of those ticket holders were sitting in football stadiums holding 80,000 people. It would require 437 stadiums to hold them all. The chances of winning if there was only one stadium full of people would be extremely low; but what are the chances of you holding the one winning ticket chosen in over 400 full stadiums? Lotto in all of its forms is a scam put on and promoted heavily by your state governments. Generally, approximately half of lotto income goes to the states right off the top and they put the rest into the prizes (varies by state - NY is the worst in its Lotto game where they return only 40% to the "winners"). Then if you beat those astronomical odds, they charge state income taxes (NY will hit you for 7.97%; if you live in New York City, add another 3%). NY started its lottery in 1967, and except for the four years I was in the Navy, I've lived in NY. I don't know a single person who has won a NY jackpot over those 44 years. "Hey - you never know?" Yes you do.