On Mon, 2003-06-30 at 19:42, Tom Brinkman wrote: <Big snip - everybody agrees the odds are terrible> Tom Brinkman: > In Texas it use to be about 1:16million. Lately they've changed > the lotto from pick 6 out of 50, match all 6 ... to pick 5 out'a > 50, match all, plus pick the right bonus ball pic (another 1 of the > same 50 possibles). To most (probability math challenged) it > appeared they were makin it easier to win, when it fact, the odds > against got much worse. Made a good cover for lowerin payout > percentages tho. What'a hell, 80% of the proceeds go to school > funding statewide. I still buy a ticket, we have no income tax ;) > Ricard Urwin: > > The only way to win at games of pure chance is to run the game. > > A strange game; the only winning move is not to play. > Tom: > Time is a factor. On a weekly basis, if you don't play you can't > win. On a lifetime basis, if you don't play, you do probly come out > ahead money wise. Psychology plays a part too, just depends on > whether you want to have some fun and spend a buck an take chances, > or sit around countin your saved pennies all your life. Hope plays > in too, not for winning the jackpot so much, but so many others > will play an we won't need an income tax to pay for education ;) That's the trouble: the lottery is a tax on fools. We've just about stopped taxing everything else now: property, inherited wealth, dividend and capital gains income, so all that's left is to tax the people who can't calculate the odds.
Lottery gets plenty of free advertising too: when somebody wins the big pile all the networks are there, watching him grin and promoting sales for next week. We don't see the millions of others who are a little short this week because they spent the money on the lottery instead of something they really need. BC cartoon a couple of weeks ago: Lottery: when 35 million stupid people make one stupid person look smart. When we got our lottery the proceeds were dedicated to education: sounds good, except that the fungibility of money just meant that they could cut the contribution to education from the general fund. > -- > N. B. Day
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