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Ha ha. I couldn’t win the Lottery to save my soul. And neither could 99.9999999% of everyone else. That’s the beauty of the system, I guess.
As a curmudgeon I have a lot of fun with lottery advertising, too. Remember the “Lucky Dog” campaign?
“Some lucky dog’s gonna win!” Remember that?
Their mascot was a Husky.
Of course they wanted you to think that ALL dogs are lucky, and that all you had to do was ‘go fetch’ a ticket in order to win.
But some dogs just never learn, do they? Of course not. That’s what the Lottery pushers are counting on.
You know, if there were any truth in advertising they would have gone with something like this instead:
Here’s one Lucky Dog’s view of the world:
And here’s yours:
Watch out where the Huskies go.
Oh JKB! Thank you for giving this old curmudgeon’s heart a taser jolt of joy. (I would reward you with beer money, except you’d probably waste it.)
>>My lifetime losses on the lottery are perhaps $20. Most weeks I break even.
–Oh. So most weeks you break even, do you? Why you Lucky Dog!
If you’d only been playing for two or three weeks, I might credit this story, though the odds would still be against it being true. But I bet you’ve been playing for much longer than that, haven’t you? Mm-hmmmm?
See, your chance of breaking even overall goes down with each successive play. So if you’ve been playing every week for a year or more, and you’re still breaking even, you may consider yourself freakishly lucky. And if you’ve been playing for five years or more, and are STILL breaking even, you may consider yourself favored of the gods.
In that case, my advice to you would be: Keep playing, laddie!
Actually, it is much more likely that you have fallen prey to something known as the “gambler’s fallacy.” It’s not unique to gamblers by any means; however, it is most easily explained in relation to them.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say you’re at the Muckleshoot Casino, and you’ve been feeding quarters into a slot machine for a while without a win. Since you’re losing only one quarter at a time, it’s not so painful; you don’t feel particularly unlucky and your money’s not being exhausted too rapidly.
Then comes a jackpot – wow! – and a cascade of shiny new quarters comes jangling into the tray. Whoopee!
Suddenly, you’re feeling lucky. And after three or four more jackpots in rapid succession, you’re really pumped.
After an hour or so, you collect your “winnings” and head on home. True, you’re fifty bucks lighter than when you came in. But on the other hand, you had fun. And when your wife asks you how it went, you smile and go: “Not bad at all! I got five jackpots.”
Note to Jan:
Darling, why do you come onto my threads and tell me to shut up?
Do I do that to you?
Oh, I do?
(Never mind.)
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