The lottery went on for two years, when Voltaire noticed that the French government had accidentally created a lottery where the prize money was significantly larger than the cost of all the tickets. Voltaire along with his friend Charles-Marie de La Condamine and others formed a syndicate and bought all the tickets they could. They won over 1 million francs. While Voltaire was from a wealthy family, his lottery winnings made him extraordinarily wealthy.
Normally, U.S. state lotteries are the worst possible return on investment one can make, with less than 50¢ returned on each dollar paid. That is why only the poor and the elderly play. But with today's Mega Millions jackpot of possibly up to $640,000,000, the lottery becomes just like the one in 18th century France.
Your chance of winning is less than 1 in 175 million, so you are about 8,000 times more likely to be murdered and about 20,000 times more likely to die in a car crash. However, if you survive, even with the take-home lump sum amount being considerably less, and income taxes reducing the amount further, you still have an expected return of more than the $1 purchase price.
Like Voltaire, gather some friends and buy all the numbers possible. You will be a big winner…perhaps!
The problem comes if a couple other people share the winning number with you. Then it would have been wiser not to play at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment