I play the lotto and plan on winning and even if I don’t, here is why it is OK

I have played the lotto for some time now, I have seen games come and go, and I still play. I have seen the drawings go from once a week to twice a week, and still I play. I have never won much more than a free ticket, and I still play. I take the ration about wasting my money, and still I play. I realized most of the money is not going to education, and still I play. I learned my odds are winning are one in 22,957,480 (for the Florida lotto) and still I play. I found that when playing the Florida Power Ball my odds were one in 195,249,054 and you guessed it, still I play. When someone told me the odds for the fantasy 5 were one in 376,992 and I started playing that occasionally as well.

So like I said I have never won much more than a free ticket but I know my day is coming. Today’s the day. I buy 2 per week, there are two drawings ya know. I never get crazy or stupid when the drawing gets really big, the odds are the same on a per ticket basis and buying 10 dollars worth of tickets when compared to odds of 195 million to one is easily shown as a waste of 9 dollars, the odds are even more against you than when you are in Vegas. I know people who do not agree with stacking most of the winnings at the top, meaning more money for 6 numbers than 5 and 4 that only gets a few bucks. They feel it should be more evenly distributed but I am convinced that would be detrimental to the game. The chance at the big payoff, no matter the odds is what draws me in, not an equitable distribution of the winnings.

So my Wife still gives me a hard time about spending the money, well here is my answer to that. During the course of the week I think about or more importantly, talk about what I am going to do with my winnings for no less than ½ hour and probably all said and told it is closer to 1 hour. From my perspective I am getting ½ - 1 hour of entertainment for a couple of bucks, where in the world can you get any entertainment for a couple of bucks, unless you are “people watching” at the beach or in the mall. That comes with a potential cost as well if someone accuses you of stalking but that is a story for another day.

We already have our exit strategy planned when we win. I just can never understand when I see someone show up the next day to collect the winnings. I do not care who you are you do not have the skills to manage an 85 million dollar win. We would wait at least 6 months, during which we would hire accountants, lawyers and setup a foundation. The accountants would ensure our money is safe and very well diversified and any other things that I do not know about, but I know there is more to handling 85 million than just making a deposit at the Compass bank. The lawyers would be setting up my foundation, I would not want people bothering me for money, a foundation could handle some of the distribution, preferably to the non profit sector as we will need tax shelters. The lawyers would also be working on the necessary paperwork for changing our names after we collect the winnings. After signing the big check we will become John and Jane Dough, I thought that was funny and with that much money I can do that.

So when our departure date arrives we are just going to pop off the grid. People will wonder where we are and come by the house, cars still there, stuff still in the house, mailbox full we will have just disappeared. We will become that odd couple that got rich in the dotcom boom and moved into a modest neighborhood in nowhere America. We have already mastered the odd part so telling the rest of the story should not be all that tough.

Do you play the lotto?