Excluding inheritances, legal settlements, and the like, have you ever gotten a large amount of money that you didn’t earn? Say, at the slots, or a state lottery, or you got the right McDonald’s Monopoly™ piece?
Define “large” as you will.
I’ve won $100 here or there, probably twice in my life, in church-basement bingo. I also won $1000 in the McDonald’s Monopoly™ game when I was 17 (and in 1987, when $1000 was a shit-tastic amount of money, especially to a 17-year-old).
I’ve rarely left a casino with more than I started with, and on those occasions it’s been in the $5-10 range.
$3,000 - $4,000 range a very few times at the riverboat casinos.
A couple hundred here and there playing poker with the guys, and one big night where I nearly cleaned out the table a low stakes game for just over $5,000.
When I worked for Eastern Airlines in Boston. There was a drawing every year, from those of us who donated to the United Way through our paychecks. I won 2 first class, round trip tickets from Boston to Paris on Swissair.
I recently won 60 on a Christmas scratch ticket! Not a lot of money but in all the years I've seen the family get these, I've never seen anyone win anything over 2 or a free ticket! So it felt lucky though I wasn’t rich!
Also I once won $600 at the track on a single race!
I won a $350 shopping spree at a toy store when I was in 7th grade. It doesn’t seem like a ton of money to me now, but at the time it was a massive amount.
I used most of it to buy my mom a bike (awww) and spent the rest on some games, as I recall.
I won a partial scholarship ($2,000) to college in a raffle back in 1970 and another in a sport good for $1000. Which meant in the end my education after HS to my Masters only cost me about 4 grand out of pocket. Anyone else miss the 70s and really cheap state schools?
I guessed 5/6 numbers in the State lottery when i was about 18 and won a measly $1100. I also won enough in a casino in Vegas to change vacation plans and head to California for a week (instead of losing more money in vegas). I’ve also won $3,100 in the state numbers 2 times in the last 3 years. I also have won the daily number ($500) many, many times. Lest I come across a hardened gamble, I only play the games when I have a dream about numbers, which I then play for about a week afterwards. Never fails. I only wish i could cause these dreams to happen in a big way, but alas no!! Once the number comes out it’s ‘retired’ unless I have another dream about it or another number.
I know a person who gambles quite frequently and they’ve actually won tens of thousands of dollars at a time. Personally, I’ve never gambled - I’m anxious enough as it is.
I know a very rich guy, friend of a friend, who has his money in stock and a few rental homes. You could say his stocks are a form of gambling, he is always checking the stock market and buying or selling stocks accordingly. On the whole, he seems to play somewhere between even and a slow loss. But on any given day he may tell my friend he has made a couple thousand.
I was up $600 playing blackjack on a cruise. Feeling lucky, I took my winnings over to the craps table and lost every penny in 15 minutes without ever even figuring out what was going on.
I’m not a big gambler, but I’ve won slot jackpots ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars. I never spent more than $100-$200 to get it and I always left with most of it in my pocket.
Lotto or scratch cards? Forget it. I’m lucky to get a couple buck winner.
