How much you ever won in the Lottery?

Raggie's post got me thinking. Any big time winners here? Do you know any big winners?

My best is $2500 on a free promotion $5 scratch about a dozen years ago. Shortly after I also won $500 on a scratch. Sadly I think since then, the state of Massachusetts has recuperated my money. I played the lottery quite a bit back in the late 90s when I had mega overtime but now only buy some scratch tickets oh not even once a month now. What I'll do is buy five, $5 dollar tickets so I will have maybe a 50 percent chance of winning something. If I don't at least double my money, I'll reinvest it into more tickets. Once in awhile I'll buy a lotto ticket for one of the big super drawings. Mass Millions is near $100 mil now so I bought two $1 tickets yesterday. I only know of one person that won $100 grand by getting five out of six numbers for one of the big national lotteries. I forget which one now. Possibly Powerball.

I just won the 340 mil in Powerball!

geepondy said:

What I'll do is buy five, $5 dollar tickets so I will have maybe a 50 percent chance of winning something.

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What are the odds of winning with 1 ticket? I'm just guessing (since I don't know that answer), but I think your "additive" assessment is off.

Never did like statistics in college.

Phenomenally low odds.

Don't play the lottery to win money, play it for fun.

I have never won a dime, but I do personally know the "Spring Six" that won 2 or so years ago here in Texas. They were the last people to win the Texas Lottery before they changed it up somehow. It was a Jackpot of $35 Million, but cash value option took it down to a mere $21 Million and then split up 6 ways...not much to say the least

Cameron

I read somewhere that the chances of winning are one in 146 million.

I buy five of the five dollar scratch tickets, not lotto number tickets. More often then not, at least one of them will be a winner but almost always it's only five or ten dollars. Saaby's right I play it for fun and once in a blue moon will win more then my "investment" in which I'll buy a toy like a new flashlight.

turbodog said:

What are the odds of winning with 1 ticket? I'm just guessing (since I don't know that answer), but I think your "additive" assessment is off.

Never did like statistics in college.

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In Illinois we can get a subscription to the "Lotto" so every year I pay for that and am automatically entered in every drawing for the entire year. They send the checks automatically if you win anything. Every 2 or 3 months I'll get a check for $3 for matching 3 numbers out of 6. Once I matched 4 and got $87 I think. Still hoping for the "big one".

I've been playing for about 6 years now with the same numbers so I can't stop. If I did you know that my numbers would get picked.

Eric

i jad to respond to a post where i got some one to think woohooo im a geniues

I buy friends and family a $5 ticket and stick it in their birthday cards. My mother won $500 a couple of years ago and I've had a few friends win $5-10 here and there.

I actually don't play the lottery at all.

Nothing over $25 or so.

I play megamillions and lottosouth. Havent won anything. I just buy one each week and if I win, going to hire a few folks here to make and sell EVs.

Part of the money goes to taxes and the schools, so I just look at my contribution to the school system.

My brother use to do the scratch off thing and would win more than he lost. Last won was a 1oo dollars and bought a discman with it.

A couple of vcu students I knew had system for pick 3 and would win more than they loose and would basically look at it as getting free gas.

I'd love to hear what the "system" was. The only possible "system" for Pick 3 games would be to buy the number of tickets that covers every possible combination, and I'm pretty sure the jackpot on the low odd games won't cover your expenditure. I don't doubt they may have won a fair amount of money playing Pick 3, but I have to doubt they were math majors.

"Systems" are possible in games like Blackjack, because even with a perfectly random shuffled multi-deck shoe, each individual card still has a 1 in 52 chance of turning up. If you can keep count of the cards played, random chance dictates that eventually, there will be more or fewer "good cards" left in the shoe, you then increase or lower your bets accordingly, giving such a player an advantage over the house.

But in random lotteries, there is no "edge" other than buying more tickets.

Me? I only throw a few bucks at the big lotteries like Powerball, usually when everyone else does for a big jackpot. I try to keep my yearly expenditures under $50 which is the usual amount of the "lottery credit" against my property taxes. If I spend less than $50, I'm still "ahead", by my rationalization anyway. The most I've ever won is probably $12. I look at it mainly as a cheap way to buy a dream for 3-4 days.

I have no intention of participating in the lottery - it's just optional taxes in the end.

I recently went through Vegas and won about $6 in the slots ... then ended up spending all of that $6 hoping to win more. And it wasn't very exciting.

Several years ago I won around $200. on a pick-4 ticket. Since then I've only won a few dollars here and there on scratch-off tickets.

as one of my friends correctly puts it, "Lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math."

i can't disagree.

I win the lottery like I win in Vegas or Gulfport. I have never gambled in a casino wihtout winning at least $200. I should also mention I lose $400-$500 during the same time period I win the $200. The net outcome is a $200-$300 loss but I still won $200 along the way.

Billson said:

I read somewhere that the chances of winning are one in 146 million.

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You mean I have a chance ?.

Ledean said:

You mean I have a chance ?.

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Assuming the tickets are $5 each, if you wait till the prize goes above 730 million, you could take out a loan for 730 million and buy up all the numbers so you're sure to win something. Of course that's assuming nobody else wins aside from you.

You guys are talking two different stories. For the numbers games, yes of course the odds are extremely high and I've never seen a ticket that cost more or less then a dollar. For the scratch tickets, it's a different story. I believe here in MA, the odds are better then 1 in 5 that you will win something but the prizes overwhelmingly are small, often times just the cost of the ticket itself.

Billson said:

Assuming the tickets are $5 each, if you wait till the prize goes above 730 million, you could take out a loan for 730 million and buy up all the numbers so you're sure to win something. Of course that's assuming nobody else wins aside from you.

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