The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for August 16, 2015

Too True!! LOL

You know what they say:“You’ve got to be in it to lose it”

Put a different way, if you’d take the larger number of pennies and put them all together head to tail like a large coin roll, it would make a roll of pennies nearly 276 miles long. Your chances of winning the lottery are the same as your chances of pulling out one specific penny from that 276 mile roll.

I buy a $2 or $3 lottery ticket every once in a while…..maybe several times a month. I have really no expectations of winning, but the “dream” of winning is worth the little I spend on the ticket. Without buying the ticket the dream is gone.

This one reminds me of The Monty Hall Problem.I was one of the people who wrote to Marilyn to tell her she was wrong. Then, when she did another column on it, I wrote a computer program to simulate it and proved she was right! It was the million door example that proved to me that her probabilities were correct.

Why shouldn’t he be like a lot of other people? I’m included.

The reason Lotteries do this is simple:Increasing the odds means that the Jackpot rolls over more often.And, the Higher the Jackpot, the more Tickets people buy.The logic is pretty simple.Many people don’t bother to buy a ticket with the Lower jackpot because they know there is such a small chance of winning, it is like throwing the money away.But, when the jackpot goes Way up, many of those Same people are more inclined to say: “What the heck?” and buy the ticket just because it Might Win..

I don’t by them at all. I find much more interesting ways to waste my money.

With the lower odds you might win a dollar or two, which would give you hope and sucker you into playing again.