Is it worth playing the lottery?

Is it worth playing the lottery?

I mean if I win most of my problems will go away right?

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I'd say it's worth playing every so often.
When I was about 12 my best mate's mum won £8.9million on the UK lottery.

Wow these digits have me thinking there's something in these numbers. Time to use them.

Obviously for most people it isn't worth it. For the people who win big, even if they have purchased hundreds or thousands of tickets in their life, it was certainly worth it.

The redneck retirement fund

Nope. I only played once, when the jackpot was a bit over a billion.

Anybody play scratch off tickets?

call them scratchies at home

How realistic are the chances of winning a scratch of ticket like the one i posted? do you think its a scam?

Yup. Always have luck with petty amounts, from 1-20. Sucks when you're a little bit off from winning the grand prize

If you feel like a 40 million to one shot is worth pissing your money away on, go for it.

You can't win if you don't play friendo.

>Sucks when you're a little bit off from winning the grand prize

This is done deliberately on all scratch offs, don't be fooled. Its pretty obvious on most, if you don't win the numbers are usually 1 digit off.

The lottery is worth playing ONLY when prices are rolled over if there is no winner AND enough people have put in money on previous draws.

For example megamillions used to be worth playing whenever it got to 172M, then they made a change and you now need 500M for it to be worth it, less if you are creative with your taxes

Yes, but only if you came from shit and had to work for whatever you already have

Usually the chances of winning anything is about 1 in 4.51 on scratch cards.

I win on every other one I buy (usually only a small amount like £5 or £10).
Have won £100 in 1 day on 3 scratch cards in a row before.

I play that scratch off all the time. I usually win my money back. I buy it twice a month. Sometimes I hit $10 or $20. I feel like I win $2 (or get my money back, about as frequently as I get nothing.

If you can afford it then why not? You might get millions of whatever currency works where you are and you lose, what, a couple of quid a week?

I spend maybe $20 a year on the lottery and I make over 50K a year at my job.

I know playing it is stupid but I have fun buying like 5 or 10 tickets when the jackpot gets into the several hundred million. I don't expect to win, but it's fun thinking "what if".

I spend more money on drinks at 1 night out at the bar with my friends than I do on the lottery in a year.

its not
yes. All of your current problems will go away

playing is not stupid when the jackpot goes over 500 million.

your odds of winning are about that, 1 in 480 million or so

everyone in my family has won at least 1 prize worth 1k on scratch offs. I just won one here a few months ago for 2500. after that, our luck dries up like a granny's pussy. my grandpa won a 10k once and spent more than that over the next 20 years to try and get more.
>overall, not worth it. too tempting to spend a few bucks here and there.

If you play that often you probably have lost more than you made. Just like with any casino game, the more you play the less likely you are to make a profit. The more games you play the more it will average out towards the true odds of the game. Profits can only come from luck in the short term.

The only exceptions are counting cards in blackjack because that gives you an advantage, and poker, which doesn't have real odds because you can bluff and win with a losing hand if you are skilled.

Any game like scratch cards, lottery, roulette, etc that is not skill based to some degree and is pure luck will average out to the true odds of the game in the long run.

Except the odds are always the same no matter the jackpot. Of course I understand the logic but Its like if the jackpot is only $80 million the odds are the same and thats still a chunk of money for the taking.

If you play when jackpot goes over 500 million you still have the same chance of winning or losing and will probably go to waste anyway. Of course this implies that you aren't playing that often anyway in which case maybe thats the point.

When the jackpot gets huge there are often multiple winners because so many people play. So sometimes its better to play the medium size jackpots. You have to split the jackpot among all the winners.

Your odds of winning never change, though.

yes, the odds are always the same. You will win one time out of every 480million times you play.

Investing two bucks to win 80 million at 1 to 480million against does not make sense.

Investing two bucs to win 500 million at 1 to 480million against makes sense.

I play a few times a month, usually spend £2 on each one and win a fiver back in total.
I can deal with losing a whole £1 a month on these things considering I piss all my money away on booze.

>You will win one time out of every 480million times you play.

That is a completely false statement. You can lose all 480 million times or win multiple times before that.

For an individual? sure. For the entirety of the people playing the lottery over time no.

This is actually very basic probability math, you can find the whole thing here durangobill.com/PowerballOdds.html

acting like you couldn't live off of 30 ish million for the rest of your life.

Exactly. Your odds of winning are the same, but your odds of having to split the jackpot increase as the jackpot increases. Therefore there is a happy medium somewhere in the medium sized jackpot range where you will still win 100-200 million and not have to split it. When it starts getting 300 plus then the news starts covering it and reminding people its getting huge again. More and more people play it and then sometimes 3 or 4 people win simultaneously and split it.

There are exceptions though like the billion dollar jackpot in the past year.

If you're talking about 'the entirety of people playing the lottery over time' then the statement 'you will win one time out of every 480 million times you play' is still bullshit.

I play one where you have to scratch quarter things and if it adds more than a dollar you get the prize. I know it's on purpose. Which do you play?

I've always planned on complaining like a little bitch to the news reporters if I won like 30 million. Just bitch the entire time about how it wasn't the 500 million jackpot and how it was a total waste of time. Become a living meme.

But at that point you're making your decisions based on the perceived difference between there being 40 million you don't have and 140 million you don't have. The reasoning just seems flawed to me. Both will make you never need to find money again.

Theyre called scratchies you fucking mong american cunt.

Literally a tax on stupid people

This is why credit cards have ruined peoples finances, inability to do basic math.

I would love to win 30million, there is no question.

That has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is worth buying a lottery ticket or not. To find out if it is worth it you need to calculate if the chances that you have of winning (1 in 480 million) correspond with the amount of money you will win if you hit the jackpot.

For megamillions anything over 480 million does make sense, everything under that does not make mathematical sense

thats Poland

To be clear, the 1 in 480Million chances I have been talking about in this thread include chances of multiple winners. If you knew only one person would win it would go down to 1 in 300million or so

I do euromillions once a month or so. Its more for the brief bit of hope it gives. 3 people in my small town won 300k, 400k and 500k within a month of each other. They all played in store, I feel like my online picks are auto lose

Says the guy who can't distinguish between government tax and a private business.

No guts no glory, faggot. Overplaying desperately is stupid, but getting a $5 lottery ticket for the chance of a fortune once every few months is not really much of a loss at all.

I have never said anything about the lottery.

I am talking about Megamillions. the game where you chose five numbers and a powerball.

Mathematically calculating how many combinations there are to find what your odds of winning is not even that hard. Why do you have to make yourself look like an ass?

You probably eat your weight in sugar and thats for stupid people and more expensive

What?

Multiple winners do not effect the individual odds at all. Everybody has the same odds. It's 1 in 480 million no matter what.

But when 100 million people start buying 10 tickets each there is a very good chance you will get multiple winners. That's what happens when the jackpots get huge like 400+

I quoted exactly what you said. Keep on shifting them goalposts, though, you'll convince us you've beaten random chance sooner or later.

u still friends with him?

me and my friends will hunt you until every last penny is gone...a fool and his money are so parted

Imagine everyone becoming your friend suddenly because you won the lottery. That's the reality. Everyone will be more fake than before.

I've even read about people being spendthrift with the lottery winnings and ending up poorer than before they won the millions.

You quite clearly don't understand how basic odds and probability work.

Some states, including mine (kansas) allow you to win anonymously. You can have your information withheld and receive the money anonymously.

That's the way I would do it. Don't tell anybody. You could even keep your job for a few weeks and then quit in a non suspicious way. Tell your friends and family you have been getting lucky in the stock market and never reveal to anybody how much money you really have.

If you look at the record of lottery winners in Kansas there is the occasional anonymous winner who was smart enough to take advantage of this.

I can distinguish between a govt tax and paying a private business. But the only people I know that play the lottery give in $5 every week and are poor as fuck. They know they aren't going to win - they just like thinking about the off chance that their dreams could actually come true. Pathetic tbh.

Are you implying wasting $5 dollars every once in a while takes guts? And then say that $5 is not much of a loss? You aren't making sense. Betting your house takes guts, not throwing $5 away every once in a while.

Projecting

>Some states, including mine (kansas) allow you to win anonymously. You can have your information withheld and receive the money anonymously.

So basically after becoming a millionaire instantly, you have the option of telling everyone and have them act fake with you, or don't tell anyone and they treat you like shit because they still judge you for whatever it is that they judge you for.

Anyone realizing that the problem isn't "not" being a millionaire, it's "people" that are the problem.

>(You) will win one time out of every 480million times you play.

Seems like you are the one that doesn't understand how basic odds and probability work

>it's "people" that are the problem.

That's always the way, isn't it?

But people don't treat me like shit. I'm a nice guy and lots of people tell me so. I have good friends who I really like for who they are.

If I could win the lottery and just pretend that I acquire this wealth over the course of a couple years it would be perfect.

It would be hard not buying my parents and brothers new houses and paying off any debt they have the day I won though. Honestly that's one of the first things I would do with the money. Make sure that my immediate family never has to stress about money ever again. That's what I think about before I think about buying shit for myself.

But that is where you have to be careful, because then your cousin is like hey what about me, and your uncle, and your 2nd cousin, and your uncle you never met, and your step 2nd cousin...

They split the jackpot?

the only ones i ever bothered with. my biggest sum was the amount the ticket cost in the first place so i bought another. got nothing.

>Is it worth playing the lottery?
>I mean if I win most of my problems will go away right?
No, not worth it.
Yes, your current problems will go away ... only to be replaced by a whole new set.

There are mega millions and powerball. Two different things.

If you don't play, you can't win.

Only play the lottery to satisfy that gambling urge but do not rely it for your financial situation. Also understand that you will more than likely never win anything big.

I don't have any regret playing the lottery because I 1) don't have any unrealistic expectations 2) don't play more than I am willing to lose and 3) don't see the expense anything more than buying a temporary, if frivolous, pleasure such as buying candy. I also don't care spending money on the lottery because in my state all of the money played goes straight to our school funds and a portion of the money won is taxed straight to our schools.

We invented them. Stay mad europoor.

>Kansas allows you to win anonymously
Noice! I didn't know that.

Lottery is just tax for the stupid, i.e. those who cannot into basic math.

No, it's not a scam. Of course the net expectation of any given ticket is less than its buying value -- they wouldn't sell these things if it didn't make money -- but it's no more a scam than a casino. You just can't expect to get more money out of it than you pour into it. As long as you're aware of that and you're only buying them for the dream of maybe getting rich, you're getting your money's worth.

For anybody who wins big in the lottery, a must read.

reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the_happiest_5word_sentence_you_could_hear/chb38xf/

I like to think of it like string theory. String theory says that everything is just probability and that there are basically an infinite set of universes splitting off from any given moment that cover every possibility.

So just by buying an ticket there is the possibility those little balls will bounce in a way that your number is chosen and you win.

In some alternate universe out there I won the lottery and am snorting a line of coke off some expensive hookers ass while another expensive hooker blows me and a 3rd has her tongue up my asshole.

Of course if anything is possible there is also the scenario where I am broke and sucking nigger cocks just for my next hit of smack in some alley somewhere. God damnit...

It's a waste of money....

I work at a liquor store and every day i hear from people in their 60's-80's about how if they did win ..... They'd still be in debt from all the years of playing.... You'll be lucky to ever come close to winning a fraction of the money back that you put into it .....

>Of course if anything is possible there is also the scenario where I am broke and sucking nigger cocks just for my next hit of smack in some alley somewhere.

This one?

What?

He's intimating that the universe the other one was describing as the hypothetical diametrical opposite of the one where he wins the lottery with all the coke and hookers is, in fact, this universe; the one we're currently living in.