Posted on July 31, 2013
Paying my Idiot Tax
Just a quick (and silly) update.
Stopped for gas on the way home from work and picked up one of these:
I could win $2,000 a week for life! No more having to write books! Just kidding, folks. In the unlikely event that I win the lottery, scratch card, or an unknown rich uncle dies (or aunt, I don’t discriminate), I promise you that I’ll still be writing the Artifice series. Well, let’s start scratching this baby and see if I just wasted four dollars. The card’s divided into five main games, plus a little bonus game. We need to match three of a kind on each of the main games. Let’s scratch off number one and see how we do:
Boo.One down and four to go. Let’s see if the next one’s any better:
Yay! Not a big payout so far, but at least I’m at the break even point right now. Let’s see if I can’t get into the positive. Here goes number three:
Aww, so close. Yeah, right. Here goes number four:
Another dud. Let’s try the last main game:
Success! Looks like I’m up four dollars at this point! Let’s see if we can pull off a hat trick with the bonus game:
No such luck. Well, at least I can afford to buy another one of these silly things without feeling guilty.
Well, that’s it folks. Hope it gave you a fun diversion for a few minutes.
Scratch cards are intentionally misleading. If the computer has decided that your particular card is worth nothing, then it goes to a carefully selected group of losing patterns. When the sucker looks at his card, he thinks he was “so close”. But the frequency of high-value cards in pairs does not reflect the true (very low). Chance of winning.
Just imagine a truly random distribution on the cards. Assuming 3 matches are needed, some cards would have two sets of triples, others would have 4 identical icons. How much are these worth.
The honest but unsellable method would be to print .”sucker” or “0” on 99% of the cards, then “$5” on a few others. And so forth. None of this “almost there” trap.
Most definitely, Jay. Don’t look to the lottery for retirement planning, folks.
Remember everyone, this post isn’t an endorsement of any sort of gambling – it’s just a fun little diversion. Play responsibly. Though, if you’re a “one more quarter, then I’m done” or “I was sooo close” kind of person, I would strongly advise not playing at all.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled silliness.