THIS fucking guy is mad because (allegedly) the person who won the Power Ball Lottery is wealthy. (I don’t know. Is he?)
He so much begrudges the guy winning, he actually writes a letter to the news paper bitching about it.
Then he rants that nobody can afford to buy 100 lottery tickets.
Since when is $100 a huge amount of money that only the ultra wealthy can afford? That guy had the same odds as the rest of us had: 1 in a gazillion. (except for me. I had a 1:1 chance of not losing my money by not playing the stupid lottery).
What is this hatred everybody has for the wealthy? If everyone had the same amount of money, it wouldn’t be worth anything!
I think it’s the point that this guy has live and could continue to live a very cushy lifestyle without the lottery winnings, while poor shmucks would could REALLY appreciate all that money didn’t win.
Nah. I interpret this guy as believing a rich guy shouldn’t be allowed to win. This is jelousy through and through. This is not the first (nor last) wealthy person to win a lottery. They have just as much right to play as any other adult.
Sure they do, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be annoyed by it. It seems greedy. If you’ve already got a couple of million, it seems kinda rude to get in line for a chance at more, when others are not as comfortable.
I didnt’ read the link, so I don’t know how over the top the writer is, but the basic feeling is understandable.
Actually the ‘rich’ guy had a 100 in a gazillion chance if he bought 100 tickets.
But shouldn’t the ‘poor’ guy keep his mouth shut as the reason alot of states don’t have lotteries in the first place is fear that poor people would waste their money on them?
I know a family that owns a house worth $4.5 million and they clearly don’t have financial problems. The wife, I hear, compulsively buys lotto tickets, as many as 50 per week. They finally won. So now their lifestyle has not been enhanced, but they keep on with the ticket buying.
I know it’s their right to do so, but it seems so wrong… like they have an insatiable urge to make more money than they can even use.
There was a similar comment on a local news website.
I was tempted to tell the lady to lighten up. He can afford to buy tickets, chances are those that can ill afford to buy tickets are the likely ones to actually buy them and should be focusing on feeding their family rather than a by-chance ability to feed them more through a lottery pay out.
What people don’t understand, or may have forgotton, is that he plans to expand his business, this puts people on the payroll at his company. This means that more people will be employed in a depressed state. In addition, he publicly stated that 10% of that money is going to three different churches (sp, one of those days) and presumably that will go to help more people.
Regardless if it was a poor or wealthy person, who’s to say who deserves it more? Certainly not me, life isn’t always fair.
So how wealthy does a person have to be before they should give up buying lottery tickets? How is the wealthy person’s purchase of a ticket taking the opportunity of winning away from another person?
IIRC, the Powerball winner stated that his winnings would allow him to re-employ 25 staff he’d had to lay off because of the downturn in the economy - would a less wealthy winner have been able to use the prize in a manner which affected the financial stability of a similar number of families to the same extent?
Kind of makes one wonder if the one complaining didn’t use his morgage payment to gamble. Now if the winner really wanted to torque this guy, find him and give him his dollar back.
If you think the rich have too much money and should be parted with it, you should be happy that they are spending money on the lotteries, in that they take in more than they give out. The only downside (from your point of view) is that once in awhile one of them gets a heap o’ cash.
If in a particular lottery, people above a particular income level were prevented from playing, only poor people would be fleeced by the lotteries. That wouldn’t be fair, would it?
The guy who won the Powerball lottery owns his own buisness. I don’t know for sure but I’d bet he built it himself. He then states that %10 of the money is going to charity. He also said he was happy he won because it would allow him to expand his buisness and re-hire the 25 people he had to lay off. What an evil rich bastard. I saw the guy on the Noon news being interviewed. One reporter asked the winner, who is about 63 IIRC, why he wouldn’t just take the money and retire. The guy answered that he had a buisness to run and his employees depended on the jobs.
The guy who wrote the letter is probably a poor schmuck who spends money he cannot afford on powerball tickets.
Regretablly a whole lot of people associate rich people with evil bastards who steal money from the poor.
As I said in the other BBQ thread on the subject, I’d rather see this guy win than a poor person who wastes the little money he/she has on the lottery. I don’t think that’s responsible. Rich people waste their money all the time; why not waste it on a financial investment? Some rich people buy Bentleys and Stereo systems; this guy buys lottery tickets. Only buying lottery tickets is more like investing in real estate or stocks, but with much worse odds of success.
To add to that, this guy seems to be compassionate, generous, and thoughtful. Not a “greedy evil rich bastard”.
My goodness. I thought the SDMB message board was full of bright, intelligent people. WTF? Don’t you people understand that the Powerball is not about winning big chunks of cash? The fun is in the playing! Haven’t you seen the commercials?! :rolleyes:
If it makes the letter writer feel better, when I was in line in Hershey buying my ticket (yes, 1 ticket), the guy ahead of me spent a hundred bucks on his. And the day before, he had bought another hundred tickets. Don’t know if he won anything, but I’m sure he didn’t win the big prize.
I agree with Sezyou, only I dont derive pleasure from wasting my money on a chance to win a bundle of cash with odds the same as waking up 20 years younger. So, with that said, play or dont play…and stop pissing and moaning because someone won and you didn’t.
There are others out there with bigger problems, yours could be theirs.
There was a similar case of lotto-envy in the UK a month or so ago. A 19 year old convicted burglar who was out on probation won something like £7 million. People were ranting about how he didn’t deserve to win, and convicted criminals shouldn’t be allowed to play, etc. The response from the company that runs the lottery was basically, “he was old enough to buy a ticket, that’s all that matters, quit whining”.
