This evening, while walking through the isles of the grocery store, I did the unthinkable. I let my head wonder off into the clouds. Somewhere between contemplating my cravings on rice or pasta, I had a break through moment, where as I was finishing my stopping, and walking to the check-out, my heart had a little tug. We all have this moment that I experienced, in fact I am positive that we all have had it. You stand in line, trying not to look at the chocolate bars and magazines (because tempation will only win the battle between your waist line and a delicious snack) you see it. You see the blue case and flashing signs. You are drawn in to the sound of the noise the machine makes and you cannot help but look. They are starting to look really pretty, with shiny designs and cool themes. Price is right, bingo, crosswords…you cannot go wrong with which one to choose. They all are a ton-of-fun. So you think to yourself whether or not you feel lucky and if you do, do you want to chance it? Of course you do! Your not having a bad day yet, and even if you were it is just as much of a reason to buy one anyways. So you say to the cashier in a voice so sure that she wont even check your id: “I would also like to buy a lottery ticket”.
BIG MISTAKE!!!!!
Because even if you just want to play it to pass some time, it is a huge let down when you find you didn’t win. That is my story. I always take my chances and when I think that I am about to win, it plays foolish mind games and makes me FAIL horribly. And of course this upsets you. You feel like a loser because you always hear stories of people wining and you feel like you are the only one who loses. And if you think you won so you go to check it to be sure and it spells out “NOT A WINNER” On the machine’s TV, you are humiliated in front of everyone in line behind you. It is a never-ending scam put on…and you continuously buy them because you feel like you just might win this time. You just might!
I must be the unluckiest person in the world. I never win anything. Seriously, I don’t. Not even a ping pong game, or an xbox match. And when it comes to gambling, ha-ha! You must be joking if you think I hold wining numbers. Even with scratch tickets. I think the most in my life I have ever won was three dollars, and even then, those wining tickets come around once-in-a-blue-moon. I never win, ever. So I stopped buying them because the way I see it, I am not a lucky person. In fact, I am willing to bet that I am the unluckiest person on my street!
In 2002, Canadian citizens spent $597 million dollars on lottery tickets. $597 million dollars. Just like that. And out of all of those people who spent their life savings on all of these lottery tickets most of them never win, yet they continue to spend. And the odds of wining the lotto…well, let me show you the chart which was taken from a report from CBC in 2003. And my guess, is that the six year difference from today, has only made the odds of wining, harsher.
The odds of winning Lotto 6/49 are:
Jackpot - 6/6 numbers matched - 1 in 13,983,816
5/6 numbers + bonus matching - 1 in 2,330,636
5/6 numbers matching - 1 in 55,491
4/6 numbers matching - 1 in 1,032
3/6 numbers matching - 1 in 57
And yet we still insist on playing them? Well wop-de-do, we are all clueless.
So unfortunately to say, the lottery just constantly lets us down, and plays with our emotions and makes us feel stupid. However there is that chance that we might just win, so we play every draw and some of us even have numbers picked out that we always play. This is getting old, and the government is raking in all of the profit and the gaming co-operation is only raking in more. And our country is in a recession. HA! Tell that to the people who won the last jackpot. We were the people who gave them the wining jackpot, with all of our sending’s on the un-wining tickets.
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