Fortune's Least Favorites

The Mega-millions jackpot went up to over $640,000,000 this last week, sending the nation into a flurry of greed and hope. For that kind of money a lot of dreams could come true. Not the ordinary dreams about buying a home and family, those dreams that most families can attain in a dozen generations of work. Like buying a tropical island paradise and a fleet of F-16 fighter jets to defend it. The winner(s) of this drawing would be very wealthy, and all over night. Their wold would change and perhaps not all for the better. I suppose that this depends on the person in question and their ability to handle this huge overnight change.

One Hundred and Seventy Five Million to One. Those are the odds against any individual intent on taking the Mega-millions lottery jackpot. One Hundred and Seventy Five Million possible combinations of winning numbers. Only a fool would game in those odds. I brought it up so as you might expect, I am a fool who gamed with those odds. Every now and again I like to drop a dollar on a ticket. As a driver, every night I pass at least one billboard. Fuck the State for that reminder. That billboard keeps the notion alive – which is exactly what it is meant to do. Think of how many hundreds of millions of tickets had to sell for the purse to grow so large.

The process of the drawing is simple. The player pays $1 for a ticket with 6 numbers. The first 5 of those numbers are drawn from one pool of numbered balls ranging from 1-56. The final slot is drawn from a second set ranged 1-46. The more numbers you match on your ticket, the larger the pay-out. They say that the over all odds of winning on a given ticket are 1 in 40.

there is no skill involved ion this game, just reliance on the nebulous concept of luck. Luck is a funny thing that I'm not sure I fully understand what it all entails. It seems to be applied to the regular happenings of the world in addition to the combination of choices that you have made, as they interact with the decisions and actions of the people around you. Your decisions toss you out into the world and and the stream that is Luck, and maybe you'll find gold or be flung over a waterfall. The future lies unseen around the bend, and who knows what rocks have been tossed into your path.

What a Quantum way of looking at things. I have no doubt why people cling on a belief in a friendly Deity guiding their steps. After all, who but an utter maniac would willingly leave their house when they have so little control over their lives? This develops a sense of Fate I think, and lends itself quite well to taking extraordinary chances. After all, if God wills it, you may just win. Those odds are for other people. A small part of the back of my mind has that thought stuck on repeat, maybe I'm fated to win the big one!

But playing amuses me. I'm aware of the odds, vaguely, and thinking about such usually makes be break out in laughter as I recall the silly thing that I just did. I doubt I fully understand the full extent of the meaning of these numbers, my simple monkey brain isn't wired to grasp such concepts. But I know what the near edge of impossible is – and lotto odds are as close as one can get. Still, one in one hundred and seventy five million is far better than zero. There is still a chance and all the chance requires is for me to relinquish a single slim dollar.

That IF stands up tall and shouts loud to a lot of people. An inexpensive IF with a high payout against those long odds. What is a dollar, or even five or ten, against say quitting my job and buying a yacht and crewing it with gorgeous young women to sail the seas? These are pleasant enough daydreams, and they lead to why I play the lotto in the first place. I like to daydream about what I would do with the money. Help the family, invest in some causes and finally disappear over the horizon on my pleasure boat.

175,000,000 to 1. I know that I'm not going to win. It is a fine bit of magical thinking on the part of adults to believe that they will ever win. Even if you drop a c-note, your odds are still negligible. The employees of the company for whom I work for put together a pool. Kick in $5 and you get a share of the L00T should one of the tickets happen to hit. We're a small company, and the boss bought in as well. There were jokes that if we won the jackpot, the company's doors would be closed on monday. Mostly I laughed up my sleeve at the idea while day-dreaming about what I'd do with my winnings.

The pool lead to those interesting conversations about what we would do with the money. Sometimes people are willing to share their dreams when discussing hypotheticals, and you learn quite about about the people around you as they shed that light on how their minds work and what drives them. I don't think I'll discuss my own plans, beyond the fact that I would pay off my student loans.

In the end, somebody wins. Somebody has to win. And if somebody is going to win, then why not me? Hope is a funny thing like that. But for now, I need to go and cancel my Yacht order. Of the $90 we collectively put up, we got $5 back.

In the mean time, I'll be back in that place between Hope and Reality that I inhabit. Until that jackpot soars again.