Do you play the Lottery?

I play Mega Million, only after it reaches $50,000,000. I don't do scratch offs or any of the other Lotto games...hope springs eternal, Mega is up to $252,000,000. Y'all play?

Oh yeah!

Sometimes, if I remember to. I am always looking to use that extra dollar for food or something. I will try to remember to buy a ticket for this one.

Never!!!

My mother Ingrid was a addicted to gambling, our german Lotto, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotto

Ingrid lost a fortune, by playing the german Lotto, we have one of the very few german casinos in our town, the Spielbank Bad Zwischenahn.

http://www.spielbanken-ni...ndorte/Bad-Zwischenahn

I know a lot of people here, they lost everthing at our casino, addicted to european roulette, and to the slot machines there...

Spielsucht is another hell on earth, I was spared from this addiction.


Michael

I play Power Ball when it reaches 100 million or more.  It hit about 250 million last week. I bought several. I was in MD last Friday and bought some for the Mega Millions.

I have visited our local casino for only one time, in the 1970s, my schoolmate T. and his wife wanted to go to hall of slot machines, to crack the jackpot...

Their budget was 200,- Deutschmark at that time, I went out of the casino, and waited in the park, after only one hour, T. and his wife came out, they lost 1500,- Deutschmark, in just one hour, utterly frustated, a very good lesson for both of them...

T. and his wife never visited a second casino, they were "cured"...


Michael

Our closest lottery state is Tennessee, which is only about 65 miles from here.  I've never bought a ticket.  We do, however have a casino only 15 miles from my house and I used to be a frequent visitor - playing only the slots.    I'm no expert on gambling but it's just always seemed to me that it's about being on the right machine at the right time with the right amount of coins played.  

The most I've ever won was $13,500.00 on a $5 machine and it was a fluke - I accidentally hit the button twice and bet $10.  After taxes I wound up with a little over $9,300.00 and used it to pay off some small debts and buy some things we wouldn't normally buy.  I thought it would be better to spend it than to give it back to the casino.
Arkansas passed the lottery law last November but they're still in the early stages of getting it in the works.  When it does happen, I will buy a few tickets every week- it's still all about luck.

In SoCal we played the "Lotto" with two sets of numbers linked to dates in the family, and three quick-picks for a $5 each week. We hit 3 numbers (a $5 win) quite often..not enough to put us on the plus side for a year though.

  However, at least once a year we hit 4 numbers. The prize for '4' of the Six was a percentage of pool money...usually between $80 and $150 dollars.

Since moving back here, we buy Powerball tickets fairly regularly, when the prize climbs a bit and I remember to get a ticket. We do a $5 Quik-Pik and have a terrible record as far as any winnings go. Now and then we will hit a $4 or $7 win, and one time we shared a Ticket with Pov Pete and won $100. We then used the Hundred to buy $5 tickets for the following weeks until it was used up!

I am not planning my retirement finances around my Lottery winnings!

Greetings!

Being a patient in a psychptherapy in the early 1990s, I had the chance to meet a lot of gambling-addicted persons, most of them slot machine addicted people.

In the group discussions, these people talked, and they did break down under the weight, which was over them, for the very first time in their own life. They were crying like little children, total breakdown. This view was not very funny at all, but it was a very important part of the therapy...

Some of the people did gamble away more than 500.000,- Deutschmark, in their gambling career, and some of them even more, into their fav. "toy", a slot machine.

Many addicted gamblers here in Germany commit suicide, this is not very uncommon over here, after losing everything, they lose their life.


Michael

  We don't have Lottery here in Alaska like you all in the lower 48 have it. There is no Power Ball, and no State Lottery. They just passed a law here that says that we can have a lottery but can not be run by the state. We have local lotteries but the ticket prices are $5.00 or $10.00 per ticket. These are drawings similar to raffles. We do have pull tabs though. I don't play them as the odds are 10-1 or less. When I was still in AZ I use to play Power Ball and did OK. Never won a bunch but sometimes I won $100.00 every now and then. I did better at horse racing since I was a manager of an OTB site. I got to know the trainers, jockeys, owners and such. Also I invested a lot of time in research and buying racing forms.

David O.

I've got my 5 tickets for tonight's MEGAMILLIONS.

I usually buy $5 when it approaches $100m.

My working theory is this.

You have to play to win.  $1 buys you entry and your chance.  Any additional money spent buying tickets so infintesimally increases your odds of winning, it's really pointless.

So that first $1 gets you into the game and is worth it.  Beyond that is just money you didn't need.

And I'm in!

Michael, you're talking addiction.  That's quite different from the type of gambling that we're talking about.

Same as alcohol.  There are alcoholics and there are casual drinkers.  The two are not the same.

Gave them my $1 last night.

Good luck, everyone!

The LOOTery is a form of voluntary taxation. It is a way for the corrupt politicans who run the industry to get paid. The LOOTery was created to generate revenue for governmental agencies and take away the numbers game that was part of the community for decades, the numbers was far superior, you always got paid with no tax deduction and the money stayed in the community and provided employment.
 
 

We only play every now and then.  Ha ha, Michael_Germany I remember as a child playing a slot machine in a Gast Haus in Nuremberg.  I won the equivalent of $14 which a pre-teen could do a lot with back in the 1970's!  They didn't monitor who played, and there was only one slot machine there.
 
And Yah, there's a difference between something you do every now and then and an addiction.
 
Andrea

I am a part of a few office pools.  When I worked in a liquor store I saw so many people blow so much $ on the lottery.  They say it is a "tax on stupidity" but I never saw the harm inplaying around $10 a week on some games. 

A lifetime friend of mine matched 5 out of 6 numbers in the Florida Lottery, he missed the last number by 1 digit, he won $3,000, would have won over $50,000,000. Drives him nuts every time he thinks about it, he says!

I have a Megamillions Subscription through the NY Lottery, happy with that.  Everything is through the mail.

We don't have a lottery in MS, but I buy a couple of tickets every time I'm in a state that does have one.
Of course, I also send in my Publisher's Clearinghouse packets....somebody wins. It might as well be me!

I've been known to pay the 'stupid tax' every now and then...Its the penalty one pays for being stupid...

I remember one year at a party, the lotto was waaay up there and people were talking about buying tickets...I said I bought a couple, and one guy says ' a couple? I bout  50 with the lotto that high'. I just laughed, as though buying 50 lotto tickets cuts your odds by any significant factor.. so I lost $2.00, he lost $50...worked out for me I guess...stupid is a relative thing..

the worst aspect of the LOOTeries is that they were initially created to boost the educational systems of each state, yet ever since the LOOTeries came about the revenues of education have been reduced. This is due to the beuracracy of running the LOOTery agency, all those hands in the pool of money
 
 

$5-10 a week on Powerball depending what the Jackpot is.

For a number of school districts as the Lottery money kicked in the the state itself put in less. So the schools didn't see a net increase as was sold to us.

I do play the lottery, and the lottery has been kind to me. 

How about the guy in South Carolina, 88 million after taxes, not a bad ROI for 2 bucks!

Looks like I'm going to have to add another dollar to the Mega.

Dear Marlene!

The people, addicted to gambling with slot machines, were mostly male persons, also addicted to nicotine, and alcohol. The femals addicted persons were addicted to tablets, nicotine, and most of them were divorced, in their late 40s, or early 50s.

They went nuts, during these 12 weeks without a slot machine, walking around in the hospital, injecting imaginary coins in a invisible slot machine, all day long...

They were walking around the floors, with coins in their hands, stumbling around, their fav. "TOY" was not av., and many of them went crazy, hallucinating about playing...

Michael