There is no way that no one had the numbers in the Mega Millions lottery! The odds are against the fact that out of all the hundreds of millions of tickets sold, not one has the winning combination. I never thought the lottery was rigged until yesterday, when it was revealed that in the last 20 drawings, there are 5 numbers that have not been drawn: statistically, what are the odds of that happening? Astronomical, at least, unless the drawings are manipulated to ensure that there is no winning combination for ... 21 drawings.
As we all are experiencing, desperate times require desperate measures, so more people than ever are taking a chance on winning something to help them make it through tough times. Sadly, all too often that chance is buying a lottery ticket. Yesterday I joined the line at my local bodega, forking over $5 to be the one rolling in green dough. In line with me was an elderly man with $150 collected at the senior center (his words, not mine). He said it would be "sweet" to win and be able to find a nicer room to rent, as well as pay for his medical bills. Yeah, it would -- but winning comes at a price, too. All I could think was put this $150 to better use because that's a lot of money to lose. And lose it they did, along with every other single Mega Millions lottery player.
Yesterday' lottery Mega millions roll over to a prize in excess of $400 million, of which 2/3 pays for "taxes" and the rest is paid out to the winner over 20 years, all the while generating income for the state treasury. The way the "lottery" gets rich is by keeping as much of the investment money from players as it can for as long as it can. The states' goal is to get more people to play, to spend more money on tickets, money that goes into the states' coffers, and last night saw the highest sales ever for lottery tickets. The winner of the lottery is incidental to increasing the lottery cash reserves held by the state. The bigger the prize, the more revenue from each sales' cycle, and the way the pot gets bigger is by no one winning it.
This is not a "win-win" for the players and the states; the only winners in any lottery are the agencies selling the tickets. I don't know if the seniors at the center have another $150 to buy more tickets of hope, but I have other ways to spend my $5.
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2 comments:
I'm actually not surprised. The odds are so astronomical that I'm more surprised that this doesn't happen more often.
Most lotteries have the option now of a lump-sum payout. Yes, it's still the 33-40% of the total amount after taxes, but 33% of $400 million is still a lump sum of $132 million.
Oh, and FYI, in Canada you have to answer a quiz (usually a simple arithmetic problem), but you win the actual amount stated. So if they ever have a $400 million lottery jackpot, you'd actually win $400 million.
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