If you are here, you likely have heard about J. Money’s fun-filled weekend of scratching off 100 – $1 lottery tickets. I, like you, can’t wait to see how he does (and by now you probably already know, but I am writing this prior to his success or failure, so bear with me). I wish I could have done this little activity side by side J, but I have vowed not to gamble in 2009 and I am sticking to it.
However, I actually tried this experiment 6 years ago and wanted to give you my reflection upon it (as a guy with a gambling problem, I remember it vividly).
Out of 100 Scratch off Lottery Tickets the breakdown went like this:
16 – $1 Winners
5 – $2 Winners
1 – $5 Winner
1 – $50 Winner
In total I “won” $81.
In reality, I “lost” $19.
For those thinking of doing this at home, let me tell you it was not as fun as it sounded. Over the course of an hour my hand became gray with all of that scratch off stuff on my hand. It also hurt like hell to hold the quarter I was using to scratch off the tickets. Additionally, there was a stretch of about 50 tickets that I went through without winning a single dollar. There is nothing in this world that makes you feel any more like a loser than scratching off 50 lottery tickets and losing on each one of them.
Best of luck to J, and since the winnings are going to charity, I hope he wins a jackpot!
It’s a damn good thing you hit that $50 winning ticket or else you would have come off close to my $38 “winnings”
While we both lost money on it, it’s def. a story to remember and tell our grandkids one day! haha…congrats on not gambling this year, that’s quite a feat!
I remember Neville of nevblog.com did this a while back, scratch off lottery tickets are the worst.
Ha! Ha! 50 straight losers, eh? I might have to quit halfway thru that–I lost on 3 tickets (1 $20, 1 $10, and 1$5) and was about ready to hurl myself from a bridge!