Playing to Win...Or Not

I've never purchased a lottery ticket.

Even when the jackpot has gotten up over $300 million dollars, I could not convince myself to spend the a dollar on a lottery ticket. I've often dreamed about how I would spend lottery winnings; the houses I would buy, the debts I would eliminate, but I would never purchase a ticket.


I'm pretty pleased about that decision after reading this story.

According to that story, the state lotteries in New Jersey and Florida have been selling folks scratch off tickets that have absolutely no shot of winning the grand prize. In fact, in one instance, the Florida lottery was still selling tickets for a contest a MONTH after the grand prize had been won. The story doesn't say if the practice is common in other states, but I'm pretty sure it is.

Understandably, people are pissed and some of them want to sue.

Of course, the lottery folks are claiming that they always provide an explanation of the prize to customers so there should not be a misunderstanding. That's a big, steaming pile of cow pie.

If lottery officials actually told customers outright that there was no shot they could win the big jackpot because that jackpot had already been awarded, nobody would purchase lottery tickets. Americans may be dumb, but we ain't stupid.

I've never enjoyed gambling, but I understand that some folks get a thrill from it. The idea that you can win $300 million just by spending $1 on a lottery ticket is very enticing. So, I don't look down on folks who gamble and I feel their pain at being duped.

This is a clear example of a corporation, one with ties to most state governments, selling the public inferior goods with the hope of making a quick buck. If the practice was perfectly legitimate, you wouldn't have seen lottery officials scrambling to change their rules once the news got out. They would have stood by their "fair" product and dealt with the fallout.

However, while I find lottery corporation's decision wrong, there is another part of me that finds the whole situation humorous. Although I try not to judge, there is still a part of me that finds gambling behavior to be stupid and counterproductive. I also understand the lottery corporation's argument that since the second, third and fourth place prizes were still available, folks weren't getting cheated completely.

After all, when most people purchase a lottery ticket, I assume that they don't really expect to win. They have to be aware of the outrageous odds against them. So, in a sense, they've already resigned themselves to the idea that they are spending money without a credible chance of getting anything. Logically, the fact that there is absolutely no chance for them to win shouldn't be a big deal.

Ah, that would only be true if humans weren't human.

No matter the odds, most humans still believe in their unique luck. It's why some of us never buckle our seat belts, don't use condoms and play the lottery. We're certain that we are different, that we are special and that the regular rules of probability don't apply to us. It's foolish and often dangerous.

But, it's human.

(Yep, a whole post with no mention of the dreaded "R" word. I know some of y'all didn't think I could do it.)