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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

YAKOB: Winning the lottery jackpot is no crackpot idea

Bumping into people you know at a remote Spring Break location makes you question the odds of the world. Then comes the whole cliché about playing the lottery that day.

Probably about once a month, my grandmother tells me that if she wins the lottery, she’ll buy me a jaguar. That’ll never happen, but isn’t it pretty  to think so?

I think the lottery is one of the most intriguing things we retain in society. Mass amounts of people put money into a giant basket just so that one of them can win half the amount
after taxes.

It’s is a high school football team’s booster club 50/50 raffle on an imposing scale. And since it’s so large, the lottery is one of the best ideas ever because of the appeal plus how unrealistic it is to think you will win.

Just because Charlie Bucket can get a golden ticket to the chocolate factory doesn’t mean you’re not a loser. Don’t take that the wrong way. I’m just saying the probability of winning the jackpot is one in 175,223,510, which is mathematically equivalent to zero chance.

That said, the lottery ends up being a volunteer tax on people who fail to acknowledge statistics and probability.

“I love money, so here, take mine.”

See the problem? Things don’t work like that. When someone mentions loving the smell of freshly cut grass, I don’t expect that to be a binding invitation to mow my lawn, as much as I’d like it to be.

But the lottery is actually useful for us. As long as we have the lottery, it keeps us informed on how nobody in the future has discovered backwards time travel.

And sometimes, it even makes sense to play, as long as you commit yourself to fantasy. If the jackpot reaches a certain point, then the expected return can actually exceed the ticket price (because the person who wins could give everyone back more than what they paid).

Still, that would require the winner to not accept the money in cash payout. And you’ve got to go straight cash on that, homie.

People do find reason to play the lottery anyway, and that’s because of the dream. Even though it’s not realistically probable, it will always be psychologically possible.

They play because for the most part, someone has to win.

I equate it to the high improbability of being alive as an individual. For you to exist, it originally required a perfect matchup that includes your parents meeting, staying in enough proximity to get together, and then the whole having a child with all the number games in that song and dance.

I read somewhere that in the end of all that business, the probability of you being here is the same as having two million people roll dice with a trillion sides to them, and having each of them roll the exact same number. Let’s say it was 800,934,021,002.

As astronomical as that may be, it had to happen, and somebody had to win to exist as you do today. In that same framework, somebody does end up winning the jackpot regardless of the odds.

We do a lot of things against statistics, like paying insurance, for example — it only works if something bad happens. Well, the lottery only works if something good happens, and I’m cool with that.

So don’t hate on my grandma for trying to fight the cards (or at least talking about it). You miss all the shots you don’t take, and even if you miss all the ones you do take, at least you had fun trying.

In the meantime, I’ll wait around with my collar and leash for my jaguar, which I’ll name Shakira and call Shaq for short.

Some things will always be fantasy. But that’s OK. If they weren’t, what would we have to dream about?

Your lucky numbers are  4, 19, 38, 41, 12, 21.

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