999 – Someone Broke the Powerball Sign

The Powerball jackpot is currently up to $1.4B and it continues to grow, such that it will easily be worth more than one and a half billion dollars by tomorrow night’s drawing. Maybe someone will win tomorrow night, but maybe no one will. No one has won Powerball since last November, but then I haven’t bought a ticket since then either, until yesterday. I bought one ticket, thereby increasing my chances of winning astronomically, but as with all things astronomical a billion or even a billion and a half doesn’t go very far in this universe.

Dan snapped this photo while we were driving him to the airport. After we dropped him off and were driving by it again, on the way home, I asked Anne that question that all lottery players ask each other, “What would you do, if you won a billion dollars?” Anne said that she would, payoff our debts, buy a new car and fix up the house. To which I responded, “What would you do with the other $999 million and change?” I don’t think that I could comprehend winning a billion dollars. It would be almost as much a curse as a blessing. According to a Forbes article on the subject, everyone who knows you now, will hate you after you win. It sounds like something that is best to avoid.

So, why did I buy a ticket and even infinitesimally risk this awful fate? I don’t expect to win, the odds are against it (1 in 292 million), but a lottery ticket is also a ticket to dream. When you dream about winning, you only think about all of the good things that will happen and not of any of the bad. All that money buys you fortune, fame and fun, not millions of solicitors trying to reach you all of the time. One of the best reasons to buy a lottery ticket occurred years ago, when a coworker was throwing a dinner party. He bought each guest their own personal ticket and presented it to them at dinner. It was a great parlor trick and greatly enlivened the dinnertime conversation. They say that the odds of winning Powerball are about the same as flipping an ordinary coin and getting heads, twenty-eight times in a row. Start flipping!