THE LOTTO: No One Has to Win

I was giving one of The Doomed Stuffing's followers some shit this morning about the lottery.  Because I'm an asshole and also because the follower, Skipper Dick (if, indeed, that is his real name), often beats my ass mercilessly at the evil, vile, treacherous game on facesuck called "Words with Friends."  But mostly I was giving him shit about the lottery because he, like many of his fellow travelers -- gamblers -- seem to fundamentally misunderstand the probability (or, rather more accurately, the improbability) of winning that big jackpot of millions of dollars.


You think to yourself, "Oh, well, what the fuck -- I'll throw a dollar away.  Someone has to win."  No, no they don't.  No one has to win.  In fact, the Lotto is designed specifically so that no one has to win.  When no one wins, the Lotto simply carries over to the next Lotto, and then each gambler's odds decrease significantly.  It's ironic that the bigger the jackpot, the worse the odds, because the bigger the jackpot, the more people are enticed to take the worse odds.


I'm not against gambling -- illegal or otherwise.  It's just that I am completely aware that the Lotto -- and all forms of gambling -- is a total scam.  You have the chance of a snowball in Hell ... maybe ... no scientific evidence exists yet as to the physical destruction of snowballs in Hell, so I'm keeping an open mind about snowballs.  But about the Lotto, not so much.


One hundred and seventy-six million to one odds might not sound like bad odds, but when one considers that one's chances of being struck by lightning are only ten thousand to one (which are still terrible odds ... except for the human lightning rods out there who like to dance in thunderstorms while holding large television antennas), one may come to some sort of understanding about the ridiculousness of putting money into the coffers of the state with virtually no possibility on the return in the investment.  It is truly a regressive form of taxation, as many gambling critics say, because poorer people are the most likely ones to make this futile investment.


I say keep your money and buy crack.  You might die of a heart attack, but at least you're not getting fucked over by your state's government.  Plus, they say crack is incredibly pleasurable -- so you'll have that going for you as you suck hard on the glass dick.


And if it's only a dollar and you have virtually no chance of winning, just mail me that fucking dollar, Lotto suckers.  You won't win anything, but at least I'm up front about it.


[Editor's note:  (Okay, there's no editor; I'm the editor -- and fuck you, this is my blog, and I'll have an entire fucking editorial staff if I want to, judgmental pricks!)  I originally wrote in this post that the Lotto Jackpot odds were at seventy-six million to one instead of the correct one hundred and seventy-six million to one.  Also, I originally wrote that the odds of getting struck by lightning were five thousand to one, but NOAA, the National Weather Service, lists the odds at ten thousand to one for humans who live to the age of eighty     --  in the interest of full editorial geek disclosure.]