Flalottery.com

Few years back I had personally witnessed Fl lottery employee confiscate open book of tickets from case, like others here And others 90+ percent loser rate. Top prize winner sign non disclosure agreements, get paid off. Fl lotto is the same as all those fake now hiring signs every corporate chain now post.

A wise relative once told me that lotteries were nothing more than “…a tax on the stupid”. I always thought that was a bit harsh…that maybe there was a more tactful way of putting it.

However, I had to concede that there may be a bit of truth to that sentiment.

For many people, the lottery is a losing proposition. It’s spending money on something with overwhelming odds against ever winning those coveted BIG JACKPOT prizes.

It really should only be played as a form of entertainment.

Some people spend $50 for a night out at the movies. Some people can easily spend several hundred dollars on an evening at a nice restaurant. The lottery is no different. In each of these cases, you’re buying a product. In the case of the movie, the product is (hopefully) a couple of hours of escapism. At a restaurant, the product is (hopefully) a delicious and enjoyable meal. With the lottery, the product is the momentary anticipation and hope that maybe you can overcome the odds and win something, maybe something life changing.

That’s it.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll like the movie. There’s no guarantee that you’ll enjoy the dinner. And there’s obviously no guarantee that you’ll win anything at all when you play the lottery.

But the winning (if it ever happens) is just a nice by-product of the ACTUAL product…the real reason you bought the ticket in the first place: hope and the temporary escape of imagining what life would be like if you did win.

It’s a form of entertainment. If it wasn’t based on random luck, we’d all be professional lottery players…probably not the best career move.

Bottom line: it’s not “fair”. It never will be. You may buy thousands of tickets over decades of playing…and then you end up reading the story of the teenager who bought his first lottery ticket on his eighteenth birthday and won a $5-million jackpot. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

That’s because fairness has nothing to do with it. It’s pure chance. Nothing more than luck.

You can analyze the statistics and crunch the numbers if you want and calculate that you should win “X” number of dollars for every “X” number of tickets played. The lottery even does that for you on the back of each scratch off ticket. But it’s just not an accurate picture of reality. If it wouldn’t be so terrible for business, they could throw in a disclaimer right under those “Overall Odds” stats…something like “These are technically accurate statistics, but your chances of winning anything substantial are just as good/bad whether you buy just one ticket or a thousand tickets.”

But I can’t fault them for NOT doing that. Their job, after all, is to sell as many tickets as possible, and it would be terrible marketing for them to say “Yeah, our product sucks.”

The product they’re selling is the dream…the momentary escapism. The sheets of paper you buy are just the method of delivery of that momentary dream.

Having said all that, the reason I give it four stars above is because (believe it or not) sometimes those dreams DO actually become reality.

I know this to be true on a personal level. Several years ago, I won a Fantasy 5 jackpot that ended up being north of $70,000 after splitting it with a few people. Though it wasn’t as life changing as a $100-million winner, I have to say that it was awfully nice. Pretty crazy holding that little piece of paper in my hands and seeing the numbers printed on the ticket match what I was seeing online at the FL Lottery website. That part was absolutely entertaining!

I was just lucky. I stopped by a gas station on the way home, got some gas and picked up a $5 ticket. That was it. I had spent maybe $500 on lottery tickets in my life…total. I completely admit that it wasn’t fair…it wasn’t unfair either. It was just…luck.

I keep playing from time to time. For fun. And most of the time, I get nothing more than those few minutes of thinking “…what if it happened?” before scratching a worthless piece of paper and tossing it in the garbage. Every so often I will hit something…like $500 just a week ago on a $10 ticket. Handing those to the cashier is definitely more entertaining than chucking them in the garbage!

But I always take them for what they really are…not a scam. Not rigged. Not a skill that can be learned. They’re just a couple of minutes of dreaming “…maybe this is the big one.” And sometimes, that’s entertaining for me.

And trust me…if you happen to be in the right place at the right time – and luck strikes, it will be VERY entertaining when you take that ride to the FL lottery office.

The last thing I’ll mention is that playing with more money than you can afford to lose is not entertainment. That just ends up being desperation…and that’s completely the opposite of fun.

I realize that some folks who really NEED the money from a jackpot…or even a $100 or $500 win may pin a lot of hopes on the lottery and I have nothing but empathy for them. I absolutely hope that luck is truly on their side…but if they end up playing the last $50 that particular week and come out at $0 winnings, then not only is their entertainment over for the day…but they’re left wondering what they can do to get back that $50 that they really needed.

Don’t judge those folks. Please. Desperation can cause a lot of people to make decisions that they might not make if they weren’t desperate to begin with. And it’s tough to know exactly what desperation might make you do if it was on your doorstep. It’s easy to judge. It’s a lot harder to empathize. But empathy wins – every time.

Maybe that’s part of the reason I have a hard time hearing that the lottery is a “…tax on the stupid.”

That…and the fact that I didn’t really feel that stupid when I deposited a $70,000 check from the FL lottery. 😉