Go for the Gold!
So, this week's Lotto 6/49 draw was for, what, $42 Million? Big whup. I had a lengthy debate with someone in my office who was convinced that he and the 6 other most gullible people in the office were going to be splitting the jackpot.
Fortunately he didn't hand in his resignation quite yet, because...SURPRISE! He got the big egg of the goose. Nada. Zilch. And for some reason, he was disappointed.
I had a friend in Calgary, a responsible...ok, he was a mess, but he had a good job, and a decent pension coming, and he would look people straight in the eye and tell him that 6/49 was a significant part of his retirement plan.
It's scary. Do these people have NO clue about odds, or stats, or anything like that? Do they not realize that even if they buy five tickets, it does NOT give them 5 times better odds, it just gives them 5 equally ludicrously low chances of winning. It's a joke.
A friend of mine in University used to call it a tax on people who can't do math.
Then when we lived in Reno, we discovered part of the element of why gaming (I LOVE that euphemism) can be fun, under certain circumstances. We discovered the nickel slots in a casino in Reno (hey, that rhymes!), and soon realized that these machines were little more than very simple video games with a small financial reward attached to them.
The thing about the Reno casinos (there it is again!) is that they were much more up front about your chances of winning, than their cousins in Lost Wages to the south. They would actually say in their billboards,
"Better odds, so you can play longer!"
Not so you can win more. But so that you can play longer before you run out of money.
It's incredible.
On that level, I can see the appeal of taking two or three bucks, and going to play the nickel slots for twenty minutes or so (depending on how slow you push the buttons, and how well you do). That seems to me to be a pretty good ROI.
Sorry to get all "Report on Business" on you, but I tend to measure how much I enjoy something by the intensity of the thrill, combined with the length of time it lasts, divided by the cost of engaging in the activity. Sue me, I'm married to an economist.
To me, $1.50 on a Diet Pepsi is a pretty good ROI. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to drink it (longer if I'm not paying attention). That kind of ROI I can appreciate, and the only real downside is Pespi burps, which are only really bad if I've been eating sardines (don't ask, yes, it was horrible).
But $2.00 on a 6/49 ticket. It takes you how long to check the numbers? 6 seconds? Even if you spend a few minutes over the days before the draw imagining what you will do with it, it's still not a very good return time wise.
To say nothing of the disapointment factor. It works like this:
In order to get the most out of you $2, you need to spend more time before the draw imagining what you will do with the money, and talking to friends about what you are going to do when you win. That to me is the only way to get a decent return.
But then what happens when you don't (and you won't) win. Then you get kind of a punishment that is proportionate to the amount of time you invested in getting the most of your lousy $2, in terms of a momentary stab of disapointment. Still with me?
So this brings me to the Ontario Quest for the Gold scratch and win. I have seen the ads on TV over the last week, and it boasted 1 in 3 odds, and 3 $1,000,000 prizes to be won, along with a bunch of other stuff. So I thought, next time I'm at the store, I'll see what one costs. Expecting $4 or $5, I figured I'd pick one up.
BTW, it's one of the bigger scratch cards, so presumably it would take you about 15 seconds to scratch it off. Which totally doesn't take into account the "expectation" period where you build yourself up during the 10 minutes or so it takes you to get home and scratch the damn thing off.
How much is this little treasure, I hear you ask?
$20. Twenty Dollars. For a scratch and win.
1 in 3 odds or not, who in their right mind spends $20 for 15 seconds of enjoyment in the form of scratching off a card?
There are brothels in Reno with a lower hourly rate than that! It's outrageous.
But that's the drill. Get people pumped up about it on TV with the ads, and then when the person is all worked up about the $million smackers they have coming their way...WHAMMO, a $20 price tag.
That's $80 a minute.
Don't even make me calculate the hourly rate. You could hire a reasonably lively senator for less than that...get any bill you wanted through the upper chamber.
I'm still in shock.
It's a sucker's game.
So, this week's Lotto 6/49 draw was for, what, $42 Million? Big whup. I had a lengthy debate with someone in my office who was convinced that he and the 6 other most gullible people in the office were going to be splitting the jackpot.
Fortunately he didn't hand in his resignation quite yet, because...SURPRISE! He got the big egg of the goose. Nada. Zilch. And for some reason, he was disappointed.
I had a friend in Calgary, a responsible...ok, he was a mess, but he had a good job, and a decent pension coming, and he would look people straight in the eye and tell him that 6/49 was a significant part of his retirement plan.
It's scary. Do these people have NO clue about odds, or stats, or anything like that? Do they not realize that even if they buy five tickets, it does NOT give them 5 times better odds, it just gives them 5 equally ludicrously low chances of winning. It's a joke.
A friend of mine in University used to call it a tax on people who can't do math.
Then when we lived in Reno, we discovered part of the element of why gaming (I LOVE that euphemism) can be fun, under certain circumstances. We discovered the nickel slots in a casino in Reno (hey, that rhymes!), and soon realized that these machines were little more than very simple video games with a small financial reward attached to them.
The thing about the Reno casinos (there it is again!) is that they were much more up front about your chances of winning, than their cousins in Lost Wages to the south. They would actually say in their billboards,
"Better odds, so you can play longer!"
Not so you can win more. But so that you can play longer before you run out of money.
It's incredible.
On that level, I can see the appeal of taking two or three bucks, and going to play the nickel slots for twenty minutes or so (depending on how slow you push the buttons, and how well you do). That seems to me to be a pretty good ROI.
Sorry to get all "Report on Business" on you, but I tend to measure how much I enjoy something by the intensity of the thrill, combined with the length of time it lasts, divided by the cost of engaging in the activity. Sue me, I'm married to an economist.
To me, $1.50 on a Diet Pepsi is a pretty good ROI. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to drink it (longer if I'm not paying attention). That kind of ROI I can appreciate, and the only real downside is Pespi burps, which are only really bad if I've been eating sardines (don't ask, yes, it was horrible).
But $2.00 on a 6/49 ticket. It takes you how long to check the numbers? 6 seconds? Even if you spend a few minutes over the days before the draw imagining what you will do with it, it's still not a very good return time wise.
To say nothing of the disapointment factor. It works like this:
In order to get the most out of you $2, you need to spend more time before the draw imagining what you will do with the money, and talking to friends about what you are going to do when you win. That to me is the only way to get a decent return.
But then what happens when you don't (and you won't) win. Then you get kind of a punishment that is proportionate to the amount of time you invested in getting the most of your lousy $2, in terms of a momentary stab of disapointment. Still with me?
So this brings me to the Ontario Quest for the Gold scratch and win. I have seen the ads on TV over the last week, and it boasted 1 in 3 odds, and 3 $1,000,000 prizes to be won, along with a bunch of other stuff. So I thought, next time I'm at the store, I'll see what one costs. Expecting $4 or $5, I figured I'd pick one up.
BTW, it's one of the bigger scratch cards, so presumably it would take you about 15 seconds to scratch it off. Which totally doesn't take into account the "expectation" period where you build yourself up during the 10 minutes or so it takes you to get home and scratch the damn thing off.
How much is this little treasure, I hear you ask?
$20. Twenty Dollars. For a scratch and win.
1 in 3 odds or not, who in their right mind spends $20 for 15 seconds of enjoyment in the form of scratching off a card?
There are brothels in Reno with a lower hourly rate than that! It's outrageous.
But that's the drill. Get people pumped up about it on TV with the ads, and then when the person is all worked up about the $million smackers they have coming their way...WHAMMO, a $20 price tag.
That's $80 a minute.
Don't even make me calculate the hourly rate. You could hire a reasonably lively senator for less than that...get any bill you wanted through the upper chamber.
I'm still in shock.
It's a sucker's game.
posted by Jason Allen at 4:54 PM
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