where you can find your success
where you can find your success A lottery ticket is about the worst bet you can make, but even so, odds are much better in some states than in others.
You have a dollar and a dream.
Should you buy stock? It's just a dollar. Plunk it down on the roulette wheel? Horrors no! That would be gambling. Leave it in your pocket? It's burning a hole.
So, like millions of other Americans each day, you wisely invest it in the lottery, where you have the chance to win hundreds of millions of dollars without so much as breaking a sweat.
State lottery games have exploded in popularity in the past two decades and are now legal in 40 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia. States love the games because they raise funds for everything from education and natural resources management to prison construction and general use, while allowing politicians to say with straight faces that they aren't raising taxes.
And despite the overwhelming odds against winning, the public loves the games even more. Local newscasts often report about the huge numbers of ordinary folks lining up to buy tickets when multi-state jackpots reach into a stratospheric $300 million-plus. One such lottery, the Mega Millions, available in 12 states including California and New York, offers players a 1-in-135 million chance that their $1 bets will hit the big payoff. Unbeknown-st to most ticket buyers, the house keeps half the sales.
Don Catlin, a retired University of Massachusetts math professor who now provides advice to casinos, explains that this huge house edge for the lottery illustrates why it is such a bad investment. The edge is what the game operator keeps instead of returning the money to winners in the form of prizes. In other words, it's the percentage of total dollars bet that the states keep.
You have a dollar and a dream.
Should you buy stock? It's just a dollar. Plunk it down on the roulette wheel? Horrors no! That would be gambling. Leave it in your pocket? It's burning a hole.
So, like millions of other Americans each day, you wisely invest it in the lottery, where you have the chance to win hundreds of millions of dollars without so much as breaking a sweat.
State lottery games have exploded in popularity in the past two decades and are now legal in 40 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia. States love the games because they raise funds for everything from education and natural resources management to prison construction and general use, while allowing politicians to say with straight faces that they aren't raising taxes.
And despite the overwhelming odds against winning, the public loves the games even more. Local newscasts often report about the huge numbers of ordinary folks lining up to buy tickets when multi-state jackpots reach into a stratospheric $300 million-plus. One such lottery, the Mega Millions, available in 12 states including California and New York, offers players a 1-in-135 million chance that their $1 bets will hit the big payoff. Unbeknown-st to most ticket buyers, the house keeps half the sales.
Don Catlin, a retired University of Massachusetts math professor who now provides advice to casinos, explains that this huge house edge for the lottery illustrates why it is such a bad investment. The edge is what the game operator keeps instead of returning the money to winners in the form of prizes. In other words, it's the percentage of total dollars bet that the states keep.
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