Why is the Irish Lottery considered to have better odds than other lotteries?

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The discussion centers on the motivations behind purchasing lottery tickets despite the extremely low odds of winning, often cited as 1 in billions. Participants express a mix of hope and envy when hearing about jackpot winners, with some viewing the lottery as a tax on the poor. Questions arise about the percentage of lottery profits that actually benefit charity, with no clear answers provided. Personal anecdotes reveal that some individuals have won significant amounts, yet many winners end up broke within five years due to poor financial management. The conversation highlights the rising cost of living, particularly in coastal areas, where even a million dollars may not stretch far. Some participants suggest that if lottery spending is included in a budget, it can be a harmless form of entertainment. Others propose alternative strategies for spending money on lottery tickets, such as saving the ticket cost instead. Overall, the thread reflects a complex relationship with gambling, hope, and financial literacy.
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Knowing that the chances to win is very slim, mathematically it is 1/billions,
why do you buy it?

Does the profit of lottery really go to Charity? How many percents?

Anyway, when i read the news about people winning jackpot (millions dollar), it makes me jealous! :cry:
How is the guy/woman going to spend that money?
 
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I consider it primarily as amounting to a tax on poor people.

Knowing that the chances to win is very slim, mathematically it is 1/billions,
why do you buy it?
‘Cause you can’t win if you don’t play. Hope, can be a powerful influence.
Does the profit of lottery really go to Charity? How many percents?
Dunno
Anyway, when i read the news about people winning jackpot (millions dollar), it makes me jealous!
Envy is an ugliness worthy of gaining a command over.
How is the guy/woman going to spend that money?
I would rather like to think any way they should choose.
 
The odds are almost never 1 in billions. There are very few lotteries with such odds (the Irish Sweepstakes ??).
 
My cousin just won for the second time! :devil:

The first time she won $25000; this time, $100,000! She only buys one ticket per cycle. Tsu worked with a guy who won twice - about the same amounts as above, as I recall - but I think he purchased many tickets each time. He won the 100,000 on the Calif. Big Spin, many years ago now.

What gets me is how something like 50% of the big winners [millions of dollars] are broke in five years!
 
I'd spend it on academics. School is so expensive!

I would have a huge library, with a nice outdoor reading area. I would also have a room with just white boards, and desks to study in.

Basically my personal school.
 
well first off, what kind of lottery, there are lotteries with odds like 1 in 400000(waste of money) but the ticket is like 5 bucks, or like hospital lotteries, where odds ar give of take i in 25 but 50 to 100 bucks a ticket, but you can win houses, cars, money whatever
 
Ivan Seeking said:
What gets me is how something like 50% of the big winners [millions of dollars] are broke in five years!


that's because they don't know how to handle finances- if you can't manage a buget, you'll go broke no matter what your income.. people go broke because instead of investing the majority of the money or hiring a financial consultant, they go right out and buy a mansion, a few expensive cars, and basically live like rock stars, forgettting that rock stars make their total lottery winnings at least once a year, and that's why THEY can afford to live that way.

Besides, what does a million buy nowadays anyhow? Not much if you're on the west or east coast.. barely beachfront property.. a shack.. and maybe a nice car's worth left over.
 
Zantra said:
that's because they don't know how to handle finances- if you can't manage a buget, you'll go broke no matter what your income.. people go broke because instead of investing the majority of the money or hiring a financial consultant, they go right out and buy a mansion, a few expensive cars, and basically live like rock stars, forgettting that rock stars make their total lottery winnings at least once a year, and that's why THEY can afford to live that way.

what does a million buy nowadays anyhow? Not much if you're on the west or east coast.. barely beachfront property.. a shack.. and maybe a nice car's worth left over.

Bingo! A million is nothing these days

In my opinion lottery is something that is OK if it's added into your yearly budget and subtracted from your balance. As long as it isn't making any big dents in money that you're needing to do something else with. The chances are slim for winning the lottery, but once in awhile they're almost worth it.
 
Saint said:
Knowing that the chances to win is very slim, mathematically it is 1/billions,
why do you buy it?
Does the profit of lottery really go to Charity? How many percents?

Watch out, now, people who buy lottery tickets help pay my tuition. Hopefully, they can keep up with the increases.
 
  • #10
I buy one whenever I think about it. If I want to save money, I just wait until I buy a new one to check the old one. As long as you haven't checked it, it still serves the same purpose, right?

A portion of ours goes to maintain the hiking trails, so I at least I don't feel to bad throwing my money awa... uh, I mean investing my money in the lottery (ignore that first part, that was just a slip :wink: ).
 
  • #11
Saint said:
Knowing that the chances to win is very slim, mathematically it is 1/billions,
why do you buy it?

As the slogan says: Hey, you never know ;)

Zantra said:
Besides, what does a million buy nowadays anyhow? Not much if you're on the west or east coast.. barely beachfront property.. a shack.. and maybe a nice car's worth left over.

A one bedroom apartment in Manhattan can cost as much as 1,000,000+ not including the monthly "maintenance" fees
 
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  • #12
My next door neighbors won $100,000 last year. That was pretty cool. They just used it to fix up their house a little, did all the work at once instead of slowly doing it.

I only throw my dollar into the game when the jackpots start hitting $100 million or more. For those really big jackpots, I splurged and spent $5 on tickets. I don't get very excited by gambling because I pretty much never win. I think the sum total of my gambling winnings in my life has been $157, and I've spent more than that to win it. I had one good day in a casino and came home with about $150 after spending only about $5. There was a dice game with 50:1 odds for a particular roll, so I figured, what the heck, just put down $1. It came up, so I walked away for a bit and came back and decided to try the other extreme (it was something like rolling 3- 1's or 3 -6's), and I hit it again. So, I took my money and walked away for the night. My step-brother was with me, and we had one more silver dollar left from when we got some change for bills and decided to toss it into the last slot machine on the way out and we won another $50. So, we stopped on the way home and had a nice dinner.

For my lottery winnings, I had a good day playing instant tickets when I was a kid (well, Dad was buying, I was scratching off numbers...we used to buy one ticket each time we went out on Sunday to buy the newspaper)...we got a whole series of tickets that won us two free tickets, and the last one finally won us $2...so we made a $1 in the end, and a morning of entertainment scratching off tickets for me.

Since then, I once matched up enough numbers to win $7 or $10 on Powerball...I can't even remember now. That wasn't nearly as exciting as all those scratch-off free tickets.

I figure, if I ever won $1 million, it's such a small amount that I'd probably just pay off the mortgage to save myself the interest, do the remodeling I'd like to do, and put whatever paltry amount is left into a retirement fund. It would just mean my regular paycheck will take me that much further. Heck, maybe I'd even break down and get cable internet access :biggrin:
 
  • #13
Its a waste of money.
 
  • #14
My friend came up with a good idea. He said that intead of paying £1 a week for a ticket, save up the money and pay £52 on 52 tickets all in one week. Or you could just keep the £52 as your winnings.
 
  • #15
rattis said:
Or you could just keep the £52 as your winnings.

That's probably more than you could win, anyway.
 
  • #16
Gokul43201 said:
The odds are almost never 1 in billions. There are very few lotteries with such odds (the Irish Sweepstakes ??).


The Irish Lottery has better odds than other lotteries. It only has 42 numbers and you can win £460 for getting 3 numbers correct.
 

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