Do you consider it a complete waste to play the lotto?

That's democracy and freedom! Everyone gets the same opportunities to make their own decisions, and nobody is twisting their crack cocaine withered arms to play either!

No, the odds of winning are mathematically the same no matter how low or high the jackpot is. It's based on the # of combinations of balls drawn vs # of balls available to be drawn from.

What changes with higher jackpots are:
a) the odds of *someone* winning during that particular drawing. More tickets sold = more possible winning tickets sold, and
b) the odds of multiple winners splitting the jackpot. More tickets sold = more possible winning tickets sold.

Not surprisingly I didn't win. So now we're back to the original question of if it was a total waste or if it really did have $1 in entertainment value?

I play. It's fun to work out what you'd do if you win. And given all the other shit I waste money on a few bucks on the lotto is not a big deal.

Once every blue moon or so, I buy a scratch off lotto ticket. I know I'm not likely to win, but it's fun to buy a $1 ticket every once in a great while just to see what happens. It's the same reason I'd like to visit a casino. I realize I'm not likely to win much, if anything, but just playing the games would be fun.

I used to buy a ticket for massive jackpots, but now will instead buy a ticket once or twice a year at random when I want to play the fantasy spending game.

When I thought about it, buying into the mega-jackpot hysteria is silly. Obviously you could do a lot more with 600 million dollars than 6 million, but either would change my life from now incredibly. Saying I'd only buy massive jackpot tickets is like saying that the normal jackpots aren't worth winning.

So based on Nautica's explanation, it makes no sense to buy a ticket when there is a larger jackpot. Or at least no more sense than it does at any other time. The odds are for the same prize amount regardless, since larger pots are more likely to be split.

Ive always thought that the lottery is basically a tax on the poor... big dreams of winning it big with little chance of it happening. Though ill always be a bit confused why state sponsored lotteries are okay, but gambling is usually illegal in most places. Seems a bit weird to me. We want to say gambling in general is bad, but state sponsored gambling is somehow okay?

Well, there's no guarantee that they will be split. And a much larger jackpot means there's much more to be split. So it probably all evens out in the end...

I mean, you could end up winning a small Powerball jackpot solo (I think its smallest jackpot is $20 million), or splitting a $100 million jackpot with one other winner. Which would you prefer?

Then again, there's a possibility you'd split a "small" $20 million jackpot with six other winners, too! Who knows? It's all in the particulars of the randomness of the numbers.

Even worse than the state run numbers racket, is all the keno parlors. Supposedly Massachusetts has limited casinos to three specific locations, but half the bars and convenience stores have keno, which is out and out real time gambling. There's a place in my neighborhood that has a whole area set up for keno, with tables, multiple monitors, and it's packed with the saddest looking people. These aren't just people hoping for a one time trip out of poverty, they are full scale addicts.

It looks like two people won the jackpot last night. One lives in San Jose and the other in San Diego.

One thing people never seem to take into account is that those "jackpot" numbers" are lies. They give the total of annuity payments over a fixed period, perhaps 20 years, before taxes. The lump sum after taxes payment--i.e. the payment needed to meaningfully calculate odds given that you're spending after-tax dollars to buy your tickets--might be about 30%-35% of the headline "jackpot" number. Try throwing that number into a lifetime annuity calculator to see what it really means.

A $20 million jackpot is a life changing event, but it doesn't bring you anywhere near the upper crust, even if you don't split it. You can retire well on it, have a very nice vacation home, and not worry about money but you won't be buying any high end Ferraris or paintings by anyone you think of as famous if you're at all conservative with your winnings. If you're not careful with your finances then the splurge spending that lottery winners generally find themselves committing can eat through it surprisingly quickly.

If you split a $20 million jackpot even two ways then, while it's still good money, you're going to feel the pinch of paying for college for the kids. That's not what people think of when they think of winning the lottery.

Had my numbers come up last night, I wouldn't be typing this now.

I'd either be consulting with an architect for my beachhouse or finding out how one gets a Bugatti Veyron shipped to Maui...

Heh.

But seriously, potential psychological damage from your numbers hitting the week you don't play aside, I'd say go pseudo-random if you bother with the lottery, totally avoiding numbers 12 and under, weighted towards numbers larger than 31, and avoiding anything resembling an arithmetic sequence. People tend to choose dates and sequences as lottery numbers, and if you win you want to avoid splitting the jackpot. If you're suckered into buying a ticket, completely random is the wrong way to maximize your expected return.

Of course if you want the thrill of a potential big return on your gamble you're still getting a better expected return by putting a dollar on 36 on a roulette wheel and letting it ride a handful of times than buying any lottery ticket out there. Odd how no one ever seems to be suckered into doing that.

Well, you found a new way to encourage yourself by this $1 entertainment but this may become addictive. Either this way or that, you're losing money.

I'm sure you can fantasize for free.

Sent from a polarized, modified, undying, amazingly talented and extremely naughty phone.

But I'm really impressed by your positive way of taking lotto as an entertainment for $1. :-)

Sent from a polarized, modified, undying, amazingly talented and extremely naughty phone.

The guy in San Diego only won $1 million while the second jackpot winner was in Atlanta.

I guess a dollar means more to you than it does me. Either that or you're a troll from another website who just made a DL here for fun.

I'm here to discuss that's all. And yes a dollar has its value and I know that.

Sent from a polarized, modified, undying, amazingly talented and extremely naughty phone.

If you ever find yourself willing to play lotto, you should always simply choose the first numbers, in row: 1,2 and so on to however many choices your system offers. Over here, it's 6 out of 49; so you should be choosing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

When you have filled in those numbers on your ticket, look hard at your choice. This combination is exactly as likely to come up as any other. This is how likely it is that you are going to win. Feel the probability. Then, if you want to, go and bet money on those numbers being the ones that will be drawn this week.

I spent a dollar, matched 2 numbers and the Megaball.. I got 5 dollars back.. I never spend more than 2 dollars at a time playing the lotto (Or Lottery games) and I always seem to win just more than I spent. Sometimes I win a lot more. I guess I am just lucky.