Is it possible that there’s some confusion here about the quantity of cigarettes purchased? Where I come from, a carton of cigarettes is 10 packs, that’s 200 cigarettes.
I started smoking in about 1996, and a carton of name brand cigarettes was about $20. I can’t see how the price could have more than quadrupled in a decade, even if the one was tax-free.
Nope it was $4 for the complete carton of Marlboros. 10 packs sounds right. Standard carton size. The short time I smoked, I only bought a few packs at a time, but I am pretty sure cartons have always been 10 packs in my lifetime. I think the going price in New Jersey at the time was maybe $12 per carton so my Brother thought it was a huge discount and asked me to pick up a carton for him before I flew home on leave. The Navy price at sea and 50 miles out was that much cheaper than prices at a civilian store.
Jim
According to this site, the taxes on a single pack of cigarettes sold in NYC comes to $3.00. From state and city, only. For a ten pack carton, that’s $30.00 in taxes alone.
And ignores the Federal taxes.
Cool by me. But I get the same benefit completely free—I daydream about being given a winning lottery ticket or accidentally finding one, so I never need to actually buy a ticket! 
(I guess that daydream still depends on other people continuing to support the lottery, though. However, I can just substitute in the daydream about an eccentric billionaire randomly deciding to give me lots of money, which is also fun to think about.)
A friend of mine told me that he’s afraid to play the lottery because if he wins big, somebody might be tempted to kidnap his grandchildren. I think he has a point.
Having a healthy, happy child or grandchild is in many ways better than winning $100m in the lottery.
Word on that. I seriously wonder if some of these idiots are illiterate, buy quickpicks, and can’t even figure the fucking ticket out to begin with.
Y’all who are saying I can’t win the lottery are nuts. Lottery tickets are my 401 (k).
Popping in to talk about my slight hijack on cigarettes:
The carton of cigarettes was only $40. I was just excited because I could actually get a carton instead of relying on meager tips to buy them a pack at a time.
The taxes on cigarettes in PA are nuts compared to here. And even worse in Rhode Island, where I forked over $6.50 for a pack of Marlboro No. 27’s.
Now that I moved back to NV, taxes have gone up, and I’ve switched to American Spirit roll your owns. Much, much cheaper, and I don’t cough as much.
Back to your regularly scheduled Pit thread.
Whoops. On edit: I play the Lotto for the same reason I play slot machines and blackjack. It keeps me occupied for a few moments of time, and gives me fodder for daydreams when I’m trying to go to sleep at night. I know I won’t win, but the “what if?” has a nice ring to it, yeah?
~Tasha
I don’t think anybody here should feel the need to defend playing the lottery. Unless you are destitute or have a gambling addiction of course.
Hell, I spend maybe thirty bucks a month on powerball and a few scratchers here and there.
That is piss away money to me. It’s worth it to me pissing away on the off chance. So fucking what.
My point in this thread, along with many others has nothing to do with whether the lottery is “Good or Bad”, but simply bitching about rude people at convenience stores who fuck up the program by taking up time trading in scratchers or asking clerks to check a shitload of tickets because they are too fucking lazy or stupid to do it themselves.
My niece always gives me and my dad some scratch offs as stocking stuffers at Christmas. I’ve never won a dime until last year, I won $209.
The people who piss me off are the ones who stand there buying money orders for 6 different bills. It takes a while for each transaction and the clerk can’t check out anybody else in the meantime. That, and the guy who needs to write a check or use a credit card to buy a $1 item. Hello, there is a concept know as “pocket change”.
I buy a Powerball with Powerplay for each week’s Wed. and Sat. drawings.
In any given year, I win about $180 of my $208 back.
My previous vice, old cars, cost me far more. You’ll never strip down a lotto ticket and find far more rust in its floors than you anticipated and you’ll never scavenger hunt wrecking yards for lotto ticket parts and the more I talk about my former addiction the more drawn I am at this moment to Old Car Trader On Line so I’d better quit.
And people have been hit by lightning walking outside on a clear day. You winning money in the lottery is less likely than that poor person getting hit by lightning. The one occurrence does not make walking outside on a clear day a bad idea, and your win does not make playing the lottery a good idea.
In the post of mine you first quoted I specifically said that I imagined a ticket in hand could give you a feeling of legitimacy for having those fantasies, and that that was about the only reasonable reason to play I could think of. Perhaps you missed that. You were already irate by that point so may have overlooked it.
So, honestly, how much have you won compared to how much you have spent on tickets? How free are those dinners now?
When I go outside on a clear day I do not even consider getting hit by lightning. It doesn’t even enter my mind, nor yours I suspect, but yet there is a better chance it will happen than winning the lottery. Perhaps I could get rich by selling one dollar lightning insurance.
On second thought it isn’t dramatic enough. It seems to be drama that makes people toss out reason. I need to sell terrorist insurance, that is plenty dramatic and in this country is the same level of probability. Is anyone doing that yet?
Just about all gambling is statistically stupid. If the person enjoys the experience and has the free capital to indulge, where’s the harm? The fact that you don’t enjoy it doesn’t mean that the people who do deserve your derision and condescension.
I don’t think you have to risk death to receive a lottery payout. Nonetheless, I’ll buy your insurance – I have a golf club and a good sense of adventure.
Me winning the big prize might be less likely, but there’s about a 1 in 4 chance I will win * something * on a scatchoff (most likely just the cost of the ticket back) and the odds of winning the minumum prize on the numbers drawing (usually $3-$5) is somewhere around 1:50 or 1:100 depending on the game. Good odds? No. Will you make money? No. Will you win on a regular basis? Yes.
I buy just about everything (including a $1 soda) on a checking account linked credit card. I don’t regularly carry cash, so there’s no such thing as “pocket change” for me.
I pay $42-$45/carton for Benson & Hedges, which never go on sale.
I’ve heard Canada described as “Bizarro America,” where everything is almost the same but not quite. One example: There are 25 cigarettes in a pack. (And you wouldn’t believe the tax! Good thing you don’t have to pay in real money . . . 
)
Hey, I was just behind you at lunch!
Seriously, it must have been karma for me bitching about it because I got behind a guy who was trying to pay for a coffee and a danish with a credit card on my way back from lunch. The clerk couldn’t get his card to read and I was really close to just buying his stuff for him since he was pretty bummed out about it, then I guess he had a debit card or something that he did a swipe on at the terminal for customers and it took that. I paid for my drink with pocket change and was on my way 
I was really just joking, I’m not going to blow a fuse over a guy paying for stuff with a card. This guy looked like he was travelling on business and was probably trying to use a company card or something, and I would have paid for it had he not been able to find a way to do the transaction.
I did that aboard the USS Tautog in 1984. 'Cept it cost me a dollar for a carton of Marlboros. Got 'em from a second-hand cigarette salesman in Olongapo City.
Tasted like I was smoking dirt. And some of the cigs had worms. I didn’t smoke those.
Or, how about my grandma in law who honestly believes a $500. dollar winner is in every cash explosion roll of 500 tickets. So she always asks the clerk if the $500. winner has come up. If not, she will buy from that roll. If there are only 40 or 50 tickets left, she will buy out the roll, convinced it is in there.
Regrettably, early in her logical enlightenment, the system actually worked… twice. Thus, she is now hooked and claims the only reason why she is unsuccesful is because different people must win the $500. and then redeem it elsewhere.
Over 10 years she has won $500. dollars about 20-30 times and she uses this as the justification. But, let’s put it this way, when someone we knew won big in Las Vegas, they went to her and she could give them $10,000 in losing scratch and win lottery tickets, to cover the tax write off, from the LAST YEAR.
I remember trying to convince her that if the roll has 500 tickets (which I don’t know even if they do) and there is a $500. winner in every roll, and the $2.00 dollar ones and the free ticket ones and, maybe, the $50. dollar one, how is it possible they make a profit? She did not have an answer (I felt bad thinking I made her look silly- so I did not push on), but I honestly thought she would reflect on that and stop doing it.
Regrettably, as like most people, anecdote=data, so the 20-30 times she won $500. and all of the little wins, convinced her she was “ahead” of the game.
It does not matter though that she dumps $1,000 a week (at least) into the lottery system . It puts out JUST ENOUGH for her to get that little “treat” so the proverbial rat keeps hitting the bar.
In all, it is harmless because she is richer than the Pope, but if she is any indicator of the behavior, and logic, of lottery aficianados then I completely understand your rant
:dubious: That number seems seriously off to me, or I’m doing it wrong. I play as often as you do (2 tickets, twice a week) but I don’t win anything close to that.
I dunno, I’m with Justin Bailey I guess. A lot of people spend more for a specialty drink at Starbuck’s every morning than I spend in a week on tickets. Good for them*, it’s what they want to do. Look at someone who buys a six-pack of beer. You could spend $10 on that, or $10 on the lottery and either way you’ll end up with a bucket of piss at the end, but I don’t see anyone getting self-righteous in the “What are you drinking?” threads. And we all know that there can be a lot more regret after a six-pack, especially if one is behind the wheel. Or near a phone… Folks can tell me that if I had saved that $200 a year over twenty years I could now have etc. etc. and they’re right. Same as if I hadn’t gone to that movie, but instead waited for it to come out on TV and put that money in the bank. Or if I hadn’t gone out for dinner, but instead cooked for myself and put that money in the bank. We all spend money on ephemera. Where do you draw the line? Why should someone judge how we spend our own money? I’m under no illusions as to my chances, but daydreaming is just as entertaining as any other pastime, especially during a dreary day at work.
It just seems to me that if one is responsible then no harm done, and if one is compulsive then nothing works short of abstinence.
That said - yeah, the OP has a point. I’m in a working class city where lottery tickets are sold in (seemingly) every corner store and they can be good places to avoid on paydays. So perhaps the pitting should really be about why they are called “convenience” stores?
Oh no you don’t! You take your Starbucks pitting to another thread right now, do you hear me?