Thanks Fear Itself. Fuck, I’m ignorant.
I’m sorry, what does this mean exactly? What does “hold your losses to a reasonable amount” mean? How does one do this? Wish real hard? Or just not buy many tickets? What is a good and what is a bad way to give yourself a chance at being rich. None of the various forms of gambling give you a good chance - in the sense of a high probability. And your second sentence simply means if you gamble less, you’ll lose less doesn’t it?
So that lazy procrastinating fucks like me have something to put into an envelope along with the meaningless greeting card. That’s why.
Read this story about why Hugh Jackman is so nice. It’s a pretty good story that explains how he ended up giving scratch lottery tickets every Friday to every crew member on his film sets.
It ends:
Rumor has it that he as spent over $350,000 to get those results.
Buying lottery tickets is a fool’s game.
Just go on one of them sports betting sites, and you’ll win over two million dollars!
I saw it on TV.
Ask for your money back, those tickets were defective.
I think he means that if you just buy 1-5 a week and you can afford those losses then the pie in the sky chance of a windfall is worth it. I don’t really agree with that reasoning, but it’s a common thought process among some casual gamblers who do understand the odds.
You’re in Florida, right? I just checked the website for the odds on the one-dollar scratch-off games. The odds varied, but they were around 1-in-4.96. In other words, for every five bucks you spend, you might expect to get a dollar back. You’re never going to get close to breaking even.
You just didn’t buy the right 15 tickets.
Thanks Dewey. Fear Itself linked me to it also. I looked at the back of one of the tickets and sure as shit it said 1:4.xxx… can’t remember the exact numbers
Best bet to get even is to enjoy the process.
If you can get $20 worth of enjoyment from $15 worth of tickets, you’re ahead $5 worth of enjoyment.
In the store where I work we have a little old lady who comes in just about every Sunday and spends a hundred dollars or so on scratchers. What little she wins goes back into more tickets until it is gone. I remember one time after she had lost it all again, she turned to me at the counter and said, “I wish I could stop doing this.”
I have another customer who comes in every day and spends twenty dollars, half on pick three and four, the other half on scatchers. Every once in a while he wins on pick three and he is all smiles. But most time he loses, of course. Twenty dollars a day adds up. Maybe he can afford it.
I also remember a woman who came in once and spent much of the afternoon buying scratchers from our machine, cashing and replaying any winners. I know from the lottery report I run at the end of the day that we sold more than a thousand dollars in scratchers over our normal sales that afternoon. When she left after finally running out of money, she disgustedly told me that she had been told our lottery scratcher machine paid off better than the one in the convenience store down the road —but it did not!
That’s the way I look at it. I only buy Powerball tickets when the jackpot is over $200 million, so that keeps my spending down, and I get a little enjoyment out of watching the jackpot grow in anticipation of playing; and that’s free. Then I buy my tickets, usually $15 dollars worth, a couple of days in advance, and I get the enjoyment of thinking about what I will do if I won. I spend maybe $100 a year on Powerball; it’s the only game I play. I don’t see how it is different from going to movies or playing video games. It’s a diversion, not an investment.
Why can’t she stop doing this? False hope?
When she does win big, you’re going to feel like an idiot.
Holeeee sheet.
is god damned right.
Wake up, brovolone, you fucking worshiper of shit.
Smell the coffee.
Well, that’s not quite it. It’s 1 in 5 that you’ll get at least a buck (the lowest prize) back. For the actual expected return/house edge, you’d need to calculate out the odds and prizes.
Are you saying I should’ve gotten more than $2?
There is no “should’ve” with probabilities. You’re just calculating how fast you are likely to lose money in the long run.