Back in 2001, my then wife and I won $250,000 in the Washington state lottery. The winning amount was half a million but there were 2 winning tickets sold. We ran off to the nearest lottery office and collected our share, $190,000 after the 24% tax deduction. We bought the house we were renting and upgraded our vehicles. 4 months later I found out my now ex had blown through over $40,000, paying the rent for people that were “down on their luck” and paying the bills of others. I cut her off from access to what was left, by January of 2004, the money was gone. I stashed some and used that to get a divorce.
May of 2019, the gods smiled on me again. $50,000 winner in the Mega Millions drawing. I was one transposed number away from winning $170,000,000. My current wife and I did some upgrades to our home and planned a dream vacation that cancelled due to Covid. This money was one of the reasons I was able to retire last year.
Today I made my weekly pilgrimage to the grocery store. On the way out I bought a $3 Mega Millions ticket, a $10 and 2 $1 scratch tickets. I scratch the $1 tickets, one was a $4 winner. I then scratched the $10 ticket. With only 2 numbers left to reveal, I had won nothing. I scratched the next spot, number 23. I look at the winning numbers and there is a 23. I scratched the prize for that number. $5000. Woohoo!!!. The last number was not a winner. Going to the lottery office again tomorrow to collect. This will make our vacation planned for next week a lot nicer.
Years ago, while I was on holiday, a Powerball draw in which I had a ticket was conducted. I had left the ticket at home so I couldn’t check the result. It was revealed, a few days later, that the winner of the $60 million hadn’t come forward. While this persisted I explained to everyone that I knew that, with each passing day, it was becoming more likely that I was the winner. Unfortunately they soon revealed where the winning ticket was sold and my fantasy ended. I won nothing.
I had a lot of fun some time later with a scratch lottery ticket. You had to uncover 3 of the same prize among the dozen squares to win that amount. I made a rare purchase of a ticket at a newsagent and, on scratching off two squares, had two $100,000 prize icons.
So I put the ticket in my wallet and carried it around for months. Whenever workmates complained about stuff at work I would pull it out and show them that I could, “Just scratch it to reveal the third $100,000 icon and take a long holiday.”
It was really amusing how many people became really agitated at the idea that maybe I had a $100,000 winning ticket and wasn’t checking it. After a while someone pointed out that the scratch schemes only run for a limited time and if I did have the winning ticket I could be in for a rude shock. It turned out that I was close to to that limit so I completed my scratching. Coincidentally, I won exactly the same amount that I won on Powerball.
4 wins you’re in a roll! That’s impressive, what scratch offs do you like?
My biggest win was $123 on an online game using the Michigan lottery app.
It was during the great ice storm of 2019, I was bundled up against the falling temps inside my house & bored. I start playing VIP Platinum using free plays I earned on a daily spin to win. My iPhone 6s battery was going down when I hit a lucky spin and the bonuses rounds went crazy.
I could feel the Benjamin’s we’re gonna soon fly my way when all of sudden the freaking phone battery went from 30%-0 in a flash and my streak was over.
I’ve met a guy who twice won over $1 million in a lottery. I think it was about $3 and $5 million. He is a statistician, too, which many find ironic.
A friend in school told his lottery story to me. He and a few friends each pitched in $20 and bought about 100 scratch off tickets. They went home and scratched them off. They won some money and free tickets, so they turned those in for more scratch offs. They repeated this until they ran out of money and tickets. He said it was $20 for a few hours of good entertainment.
My Uncle won $100,000 back in the 80s when that much money was life-changing. But he mismanaged it, and it was gone within a year.
More recently, a several-steps removed cousin* who I barely know, won a third of a $40m jackpot (so around $13m) and I am immensely jealous. I don’t know how he has spent it, but it sure wasn’t on me.
My Daddy won crap all the time on scratch offs. Mostly he just got more tickets with his paltry sums.
He was handicapper and went the the track everyday. Won scads, lost loads.
When he died his bookie was at his funeral. Scared the crap out of everyone. We just knew our kneecaps would be broken.
I was the only one of my Sibs who had met him, beforehand.
It was determined I was to just walk right up and ask him what the heck he wanted. (Our inheritance was at stake, yeah, right!)
He came to me before I gathered up courage to speak to him. He handed me an envelope and waxed on and on about how much he liked my Daddy.
I stuck the envelope in my pocket and didn’t think about it again.
When I got around to opening it. There was $8000 in tidy $50 bills.
And his business card.
I never win anything, ever. Games of chance are not for me. They are games of certainty, that I will lose. Sometimes my Crackerjacks box doesn’t have a prize in it. If the folks I’m in a Lotto pool with knew this, they’d probably kick me out.
