I grew up watching my dad play the lottery, and turning to the ABC station for the powerball drawing and always losing.
So when I finally turned 18, I was very eager to buy my first scratch off just because I could. I went to a random corner store by a friend’s house and picked up two scratch offs for two dollars. I immediately snatched out a coin and started scratching away.
I did not even walk out the store five dollars richer, just a sad 18-year-old who lost two dollars. Since my 18th birthday, I have not played the lottery.
I am very frugal and borderline cheap, so spending money with just the chance of maybe winning 10 dollars for a dollar or two does not settle well with me because that adds up, especially with my luck.
However, the lottery is recreational and helps a lot of public schools, benefit programs and the retailer and vendor commissioners. If you are lucky, it could even help you out and make you a millionaire or billionaire. But if you are really unlucky, you could maybe lose a couple hundred or thousands. The lottery hurts us more than we think, some more than others.
According to NASPL, during fiscal year in 2012, U.S. lottery sales totaled $78 billion ($US). Canadian sales reached $9.3 billion ($Can).
I do not think there is a problem with taking a chance once in a while to play the lottery, but if you do plan on playing more than once or twice a month, people should give themselves a budget each month they cannot go over.
Play the game, but do not get played by the game.
Sorry, Vanessa, but if you are a media student you really should know the difference between ‘loosing’ (which is not a word) and ‘losing’ (the word you were looking for in the context of ‘…and turning to the ABC station for the powerball drawing and always loosing’. Hope this helps!