Yesterday I read an article in The Guardian that made an argument against those who consider the Powerball a “stupidity tax”. People view those who partake in the Powerball as fools who are throwing their money away on false hopes. I’ve seen this first hand.
Last month, a man walked up to me at a convenience store and told me I was wasting my money. I remembered smiling and saying “My odds of winning are 1 in 175,223,510. Your odds are 0.”
I have a sixth sense for lucky numbers. Or at least, I’d like to think that I do. With $400,000,000 up for grabs on Wednesday night, I wasn’t going to wait for Joe Schmoe from Oklahoma to snatch the glory from my grasp. As the sixth-largest Powerball jackpot in United States history, I didn’t want to sit this round out. Like ‘N Sync once said — it’s gonna be me.
But with great money comes great responsibility — especially if the numbers that you use are cursed. So this one’s for all you “Lost” fans out there that still haven’t emotionally recovered from the series finale in 2012. Remember Hugo Reyes? Well he won the lottery, gained nothing but horrendous bad luck and ended up lost on an island in the South Pacific after a plane crash. But who believes in bad luck anyway?
Someone once told me that you have better luck if you use the same numbers every week. I’m not one for superstition, so I know that there is no pattern with the numbers that are picked. There is no method to the madness and frankly, any number can be picked for as many weeks in a row as it pleases.
It’s almost like they put the “overall odds of winning a prize in the Powerball are approximately 1:31.85,” to dupe you into spending your life savings on tickets. As an avid Powerball player, I know that the odds of winning the overall Powerball is 1 in 175,223,510, but that doesn’t keep me playing as frequently as I do — there are more improbable things to partake in on this planet.
According to Nature Net, you’re 75 times more likely to win the jackpot than be killed by a tree in a public space.
Think about that next time you’re walking around Boston Common as you imagine yourself winning the Powerball, emerging as a majestic phoenix rising from the ashes of your student loans.
As I got older, my dreams grew larger. I no longer wanted to buy myself a log cabin with my Powerball winnings. Instead, I wanted to do adult things like buy a mansion, pay off loans and frolic through a forest made of cotton candy. If I can pay $2 to give myself the ability to have infinite dreams, then that’s money well spent.
I didn’t win the Powerball on Wednesday, but at least I can have peace in knowing that a tree didn’t fall on me as I was walking to class today. Fortunately, I’m not that lucky.
Jennifer Ruth is a CAS junior. She can be reached at jennifervruth@gmail.com
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