Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Marx was wrong, religion isn't the opiate of the masses; lottery tickets are.
Working at a convince store in the past I observed people who could ill spare $10 or $20 buying putting every spare dime into scratch-off tickets. Even worse whatever was won on these would be used to buy a continuously diminishing supply to buy still more tickets. Of course everyone traded stories of the few who "hit it big" almost like a religious litany.
So let's look at how much a modest $20 per week lottery habit adds up to:
So my state's scratcher's games pay out an average of 69% meaning that your $20 is now $13.80 but you just have to go back and get some more tickets to "win big" so now your $20 is $9.52. I'll give people an overly large bennifit of the doubt that they stop there.
So our hypothetical modest lottery player is paying the state $10.48 every week or $544.96 every year.
So combined with last week we are up to a total of $1844.96 from brown bagging it and failing to contribute to a non-mandatory state tax.
Smarter move... In the short AND long runs...
ReplyDeleteWell in the long run 544.96 per year into a good growth stock mutual fund could easily come up to $418,034.14 over someone's working life, jackpot.
DeleteEverytime I go to a convenience store I have to wait for the idiot(ess) to have their lottery tickets scanned because they are too stupid to read em properly and know if they won or not. Then they select the next batch, then they pay for their cheap American beer.
ReplyDeleteIf they attempt to stop and scratch their tickets off at the counter while I am forced to wait there is going to be a fight.
Oh and be sure to put that beer in a bag Mr. Cashier so the cops won't see what I am drinking and make the people behind wait even longer.
I used to work the kitchen side of a convenience store, they kept me away from the register because they new in this age of video recording phones that the first time someone came in and bought $150 of junk food on an EBT and then spent the same amount on beer, cigs, and lottery tickets that me chewing this person out would go viral.
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