Champagne Wishes and Powerball Dreams

Saturday night’s Powerball jackpot will be an estimated $40 million and nobody will be talking about that today and few if any will be buying tickets.

I say this obviously because for the last week or two we’ve been gripped by Powerball fever as the jackpot grew to $1.5 billion with last night’s drawing resulting in three winners in California, Florida and Tennessee. Just like in many places our office had a lottery pool and it’s been the main subject of conversation around the water cooler and during lunch breaks. Yesterday one of my co-workers even spent time asking others if they would quit their jobs right away or at least provide notice before departing. That’s no longer an issue or question.

Sure it was fun to fantasize about winning an ungodly sum of money but why is it that only when the jackpot gets to ridiculous amounts do we play? 99.9% of us would find winning or sharing Saturday’s $40 million jackpot life-changing but the same people who bought anywhere from 1-100 tickets last night won’t bother to purchase a single one on Saturday. The odds remain the same (one in 292 million) and you have a much better chance of being struck by a meteor three times. Why is it that a $40,000 a year worker only buys a ticket when the jackpot approaches the word billions and passes on a potential payday of $40 million?

The most amazing thing to me was what took place in Nevada which is one of only six states in the U.S. that does not participate in the Powerball or even have a state lottery (the others are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi and Utah). Some people drove across the desert and then waited in line for hours to purchase tickets just across the state border in California. All this for a one in 292 million chance to make history.

I don’t know if any of the groups I was a part of won any money last night but I hope we roll it over to Saturday night. I’m okay with a piece of $40 million. By the way I was on record as saying if I was part of a winning ticket last night I would not quit my job right away but rather fade out over a period of time following a really nice vacation. Another fantasy out the window!