Playing the Lottery is Stupid

Stephanie over at The Broke and Beautiful Life had a great article that I read recently titled: “Is Playing the Lottery Insane?”

I thought I would chime in here and add my two cents on the topic of playing the lottery.

 

 

Playing the Lottery is Stupid – Money Saving Breakdown

• Difficulty (Super Easy/Easy/Medium/Hard/Expert): Super Easy
• Average Savings per Year ($/year): 520
• Time Required (mins): 5
• Savings for your time ($/hr): 6,240

Playing the Lottery is Stupid – My Background

I’ve only ever played the lottery twice in my life!  Once when I turned 18 as a “right of passage” for entering adulthood.  The other time was when I randomly stopped at a gas station 10 or 11 years ago when the Powerball (or whatever they were calling it at the time) had reached some gigantic number and was all over the news.

Why don’t I play the lottery?  Because I think it is a complete waste of money.  I know some folks that have been routinely spending $10 a month on the lottery for the past 30 years – insane!  The numbers don’t really add up to me, and as such I avoid it completely.

Playing the Lottery is Stupid – The Trade-Off

Some folks bring up the “hope” factor that the lottery ticket is buying.  “Spending $2 or $10 a week is a small price to pay for that hope that you will strike it big,” they say.

Well, I have news for you – if you’re not happy now, then winning the lottery will probably not make you happy either!!  Don’t believe me, just looks at some of these lottery horror stories.  As they say, “money can’t buy happiness.”

Playing the Lottery is Stupid – The Numbers

If instead of playing the lottery, you took the $10 a week and invested it in low cost market index funds, you’d have more than $145,000 after 40 years!  That’s a nice chunk of change – think of what you could do with that!

Did you know that there is only a 1 in 175,223,510 in winning the Powerball Jackpot?!?  And, that also assumes no one else wins and you’ll have to share the pot of winnings.  A quick wikipedia search tells us that the Powerball lottery game has an equal payout after the pot reaches $498 million (this takes into account the smaller prizes and taxes).  But, it doesn’t assume that the pot is split!  As the jackpots get larger, there is a higher and higher chance that the pot will be split multiple ways.  This means that you are always playing a losing game when playing the lottery.

As a fun side fact, depending on where you live, did you know that you’re almost 100 times more likely to get struck by lightning and killed then win the Powerball?

You also have a greater chance of dying by having a vending machine falling on you then winning the Powerball!!!  Have I convinced that playing the lottery is stupid yet?!?

Playing the Lottery is Stupid – Final Thoughts

For me, playing the lottery is just plain stupid!  Really, really, extremely stupid!  I’ve heard of playing the lottery referred to as the “stupid tax,” and I fully agree with this.  I think it is a predatory game that targets the less intelligent members of our society.  Please, take the time to convince others to stop wasting their money on the lottery!