Bob CollinsFirst, we acknowledge that (a) playing the lottery is a good way to throw your money away and (b) publicizing winners helps keep people ignoring “a”.
That said, who among us hasn’t thought of what we’d do with the sudden addition of millions into the bank account?
Today, Rhonda Meath, 51, told reporters that she has to go to work tonight because she likes her job at the Lake Elmo Inn.
She and her husband, Joe, showed up with three of their four kids at lottery headquarters today to claim the Hot Lotto jackpot worth $11 million.
They plan to buy a new SUV and donate some of the money to programs for K-9 dogs.
They won’t pay taxes on their winnings. The jackpot already calculates the withholding.
According to the lottery, the odds of hitting the jackpot are 1 in about 29 million. Those are actually pretty goods odds, compared to the more publicized Powerball.
But they’re not good odds in either case, of course.
How does that compare to life’s other possibilities?
You have a 1 in 1 million chance of dying from flesh-eating bacteria.
You have a 1 in 10 million chance of becoming president.
You have a 1 in 104 chance of being audited.
You have a 1 in 3 chance of getting a divorce.
You have a 1 in 115,300 chance of going to the ER because of a pogo stick injury.
Alright, granted that last one is debatable. You have no shot at going to the ER because of a pogo stick injury if you don’t ever use or are around a pogo stick.
Basically, the odds of that happening are the same as the odds of winning a lottery jackpot.
What are the odds you have a winning ticket but forgetting that you even bought tickets? It happens all the time, apparently.
