Monopoly Guy Rich

After years of referring to lotteries as “a tax on people who are bad at math,” earlier this year I set up an annual subscription to one of the multi-state lotteries (Mega Millions). For the price of $104 a year ($8.67/mo) I have a ticket registered in every drawing (two a week).

The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 175,711,536. The odds of winning the second prize ($250,000) are a mere 1 in 3,904,701. By comparison, my lifetime odds of dying from the ignition or melting of nightwear are 1 in 1,249,356. For the same reason that I’m playing the lottery, I’m sleeping naked:

No matter what the odds, the probability goes to zero if you don’t play (or wear nightwear).

One of my favorite blonde jokes goes like this:

A single mother, who is blonde, is also a devout Christian. Every night she prays to God, “I’m doing the best I can. Please help me give my children the security and opportunities they deserve – let me win the lottery.”

For six months, every night, she fervently prays this way. One night, overwhelmed and frustrated, she prays, “God, I go to church, I live by your teachings, I give to the collection plate even when I can’t afford it, I deserve this. If you don’t make it happen, we’re quits.”

That night The Almighty appears to her in a dream. He says, “Lady. Meet me half way. Buy a ticket.”

Given what I am willing or, rather, not willing to do to obtain obscene wealth, the only way I can hope to arrive at this outcome is by winning the lottery. And I would do a fabulous job at being an obscenely wealthy person. Setting aside what I would give back via worthwhile foundations and grants, I would do all the eccentric, crazy crap that we associate with the mindbogglingly well off. I would:

• Wear a monocle.
• Own a geisha-cooled computer.
• Pick a fun item for my wife to collect, then surprise her on random occasions by presenting her with another one. Perhaps zoos.
• Anonymously give a million dollars to a deserving stranger.
• Employ an assistant of Indian heritage (who learned English at Oxford) to pop up in the aforementioned stranger’s life at opportune moments to deliver meaningful but cryptic advice.

The entertainment value that I get from fantasizing about my behavior were I to become breathtakingly flush is more than worth the $8.67 a month on lottery tickets.