Lottery
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A common argument, to be sure, but a stupid one. Your expected return on a £1 lottery ticket is something like 40p, so every time you buy a lottery ticket you lose 60p - on average. If you put a fiver on the lottery every week, you're throwing away £3 a week, or £150 per year. Someone who doesn't play the lottery at all is staying level. Sure, you've got to be in it to win it. But you've also got to be in it to throw away your money, and that's a MUCH more common outcome.stoofa said:
Not quite. With house insurance your expected return is MUCH closer to your initial outlay. An insurance company whose premiums were 150% above the expected payouts would soon go bust. Also, when you buy house insurance you're buying peace of mind. For the outlay of £X per year you have the security of knowing that even if someone does break into your house and steal your expensive stuff, you'll be covered. Most people would think that that's definitely worth it. So even though you lose money on average when you buy insurance, you gain something that most people think is more valuable.
If you get actual, tangible enjoyment from playing the lottery then that's fine. Your £1 ticket is buying you a tiny chance to win a big prize, and it's also buying you some entertainment. However, if you're only buying a lottery ticket because you have dreams of being rich (and I think a lot of people are) then you're being stupid.
As Sequoia points out (much more level-headedly than I would be able to manage!) this is completely meaningless without some mention of the odds. It's also rendered pointless by the fact that there are people who consistently win money on fruit machines by playing skillfully. No one can do that with the lottery.
What's wrong with dreaming you were rich?Arcade Fire said:
I think most people accept it as a bit of fun and there's a chance (however small) that you could win a life changing amount of money, I don't have a problem with putting a £1 a week on the lottery. I wonder if the people wailing over it being a waste of money go out drinking alcohol (an even bigger waste of money in my opinion) on a regular basis?
I have never once bought a lottery ticket, sure I have dreams of living comfortably when I am older, and hopefully having no financial stresses, but in reality the liklihood of this happening aren't too high! As are the chances of me winning the lottery. I think I will do the lottery one day maybe, if I feel lucky on a whim, but I wouldnt want to become addicted to it.
My friends advice to me was do the lucky dip because if u pick a set of numbers to use, u will carry on to use those numbers in fright that if you dont they will come up.
I would rather earn my money, and work hard for it, but then if I won a few million then I certainly wouldnt complain and could buy a lot of things that could in the future help me stay stable/help my career.
Fruit machines are a waste of time imo unless you are skillfull and know what you are doing, I see people at my pub inserting pound after pound after pound, winning £10 then putting it back in again, it seems pointless to me.
My friends advice to me was do the lucky dip because if u pick a set of numbers to use, u will carry on to use those numbers in fright that if you dont they will come up.
I would rather earn my money, and work hard for it, but then if I won a few million then I certainly wouldnt complain and could buy a lot of things that could in the future help me stay stable/help my career.
Fruit machines are a waste of time imo unless you are skillfull and know what you are doing, I see people at my pub inserting pound after pound after pound, winning £10 then putting it back in again, it seems pointless to me.
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Did you even read my post? There's nothing wrong with playing the lottery IF you view it as a bit of fun. When you stop viewing it as a laugh and you actually think that you're going to get rich from it, THEN you're being stupid.Mr Joshua said:
Some interesting facts:
Odds on winning a prize from the lotto according to Wiki:
Match Prize Odds of winning
3 numbers £10 1: 57
4 numbers 22% of remaining fund 1: 1,033
5 numbers 10% of remaining fund 1: 55,492
5 numbers and bonus ball 16% of remaining fund 1: 2,330,636
6 numbers 52% of remaining fund 1: 13,983,816
The odds of you being hit by a city smasher meteor during your life time (ie, a meteor big enough to obiliterate around quarter of a million people) is around 750: 1.
Want to know your odds of getting hit by lightning during a year?
Approximately: 576,000 to 1
The odds SUCK.
For the record I have never played the lottery, to poor
Odds on winning a prize from the lotto according to Wiki:
Match Prize Odds of winning
3 numbers £10 1: 57
4 numbers 22% of remaining fund 1: 1,033
5 numbers 10% of remaining fund 1: 55,492
5 numbers and bonus ball 16% of remaining fund 1: 2,330,636
6 numbers 52% of remaining fund 1: 13,983,816
The odds of you being hit by a city smasher meteor during your life time (ie, a meteor big enough to obiliterate around quarter of a million people) is around 750: 1.
Want to know your odds of getting hit by lightning during a year?
Approximately: 576,000 to 1
The odds SUCK.
For the record I have never played the lottery, to poor
Soldato
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Marius said:
someones gotta win.
glass half empty?
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Guess I may be a bit pessimistic, but still I see it as a waste of a quid a week.
Soldato
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vonhelmet said:
yeah but ive got the same chance of winning as anyone else, so i'll say again
someones gotta win
Soldato
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vonhelmet said:
me
