Sandwiched around a $1,000 prize he won earlier this year, a man from Baltimore County recently won a $100,000 prize to go along with a $10,000 payout last year, Maryland Lottery officials said in a news release.
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Every time I stop at or drive by the Shell station here in town, I see the same woman standing outside with a fist full of scratch-offs. She's always dressed in raggedy-ass clothes, lives in the shitty apartments a couple hundred yards up the road and doesn't own a car, but by God she plays those scratchers every day.
A friend of mine calls those "ignorance taxes".
ReplyDeleteI get one Powerball ticket a year, when the prize starts to hit very high numbers. If it's my fate to win, I'll win with one ticket.
The lottery is some people's retirement plan. Like you, I will buy one Powerball when it gets up in the stratosphere, just for the pleasure of daydreaming about winning.
DeleteI've never bought one.
ReplyDeleteAlways someone at the counter here in a big hurry to win, scratching their tickets right there, leaving their damn crumbs behind. When I point out they don't have to scratch at all, just give the tickests to the clerk and she will scan them they give me the ole FO
ReplyDeleteDaryl
I like to play on occasion- same as going to a $15 a ticket movie, it's entertainment to me. Will I win lol, not likely but gotta be in it to win it (even bigger lol)
ReplyDeleteSeriously tho, friend won 100k scratcher. Got a net chk for 60k. Was smart and paid off his debts and got his shit right, or so he said.
Today, that boy is back right where he started, back in debt... oh, to see the inside door pockets of his work van - fuking stuffed, I mean STUFFED with loser tickets. Hundreds of them... he likes the $20 & $30 scratchers... just insane.
There was a stretch when I was still in California where I'd go in and buy ONE 5 dollar scratcher once a week and win 75 bucks every time. It went on like that for 3-4 months. I quit buying them when I didn't win anything two times in a row.
DeleteMy neighbors wife won $25000. When someone commented on that to her husband, he said "cost me $40000". Now long retired, they live in an old house and had to sell their farm. Nothing left.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to buy tickets, should you put in the time to keep copies of the winning tickets and keep the losing tickets and take the tax deduction if you are itemizing your return.
ReplyDeleteI got lucky. I went to a carnival as a kid. Maybe ten years old. First booth a Carney cleaned me out. All my friends were on rides and doing shit and I was broke. I never gambled again.
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling; they show alleged prizes in the back but there isn't any way to win. They prey on kids.
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I'm rooting for your Shell station lady. I know it's dumb, but it could be her only hope of raising her circumstances, means she's not given in to despair yet.
ReplyDeleteI worked with a guy who would work every bit of overtime he possibly could and then every weekend head up to the indian casino and gamble it away . About two times a year he would show up bragging about how he won three or four grand .He got kind of defensive when we asked him what he actually spent to "win" the three K .
ReplyDeleteLottery tickets get me thinking about illegal aliens- If I win the "big one" I'm gonna have to hire Juan and Maria to help take care of my new mansion.
ReplyDeleteBoomers always see all sorts of agency in people displaying symptoms of mental illness. It is a curious phenomenon.
ReplyDelete