That wonderful feeling of winning the lottery...

Sometimes I get the winning feeling. It is never for anything big, but as my friends from university could tell you, I am usually pretty spot on when I get it. I can walk into a convenience store, get a sensation, walk to the counter and point at a scratch ticket. Even if that wasn’t my intent to play the lottery that day, I’ll trust that intuition and get the ticket I know is a winner.

Back in 1997, living on Princess St in Kingston, I was fortunate enough to live next door to the 7/11 and their deadly addictive nachos. It was also the store that I would get that feeling from most of the time. In fact, over the course of about 2 months that year, I won 23 out of 25 tickets that I bought. That number is much to high to be dismissed as coincidence, no?

As I said above though, the winnings are never huge, normally anywhere between $5 and $50. Not enough to retire on, but usually good for a pint or two the next night at the bar.

I haven’t had that feeling in a couple of years until this past Tuesday. I walked into the store down the road from me here in Ottawa, and all of a sudden that distantly familiar sensation returned in a big way. Only this time, I knew it was not for a scratch ticket, but for the 6/49 machine. I looked at the prize of $10,000,000 and thought, what the hell. It is my buddy’s birthday on Wednesday, and what better way to celebrate than for me to win the lottery?

So I confidently walked up to the counter and bought a quick pick for the January 19th draw.

I had forgotten about that ticket in my wallet until about an hour ago. I gleefully pulled that ticket out and went online to check the numbers.

I did not hit ONE SINGLE NUMBER of the lucky 6.

However, much to my surprise, I matched the last 4 numbers on the Encore bonus game! That’s worth $100!

Sadly, my intuition was a little bit off. I had forgotten to play the Encore.

Happy Birthday, Steve-O.

You clearly have some kind of prodigous talent. Please send me your name and address, and I will send you $10,000 US to buy tickets with. As my agent, I’ll give you a 15% cut of the profits. The way I see it, we’re both due to make a lot of money.

As much as I would love to send you $10K in tickets, that feeling cannot be predicted or enticed. Sadly. I could be a millionaire.

I mean I got it every couple of days for a few weeks on end sometimes, then nothing for a year. I wish it was at least on some sort of schedule. Of course, I might have jsut gotten very very very very very randomly lucky.

No. It’s a fluke - improbable, but not impossible. Add to that the human tendency to recall things that stand out in some way (like getting “the feeling” and subsequently winning), and forget those which do not (like getting “the feeling”, but not winning), and you’ve got nothing. I know how you can win a million bucks, if you can consistently prove you’ve got some ability beyone mere chance, though.