Punked By Power Ball Posts

“It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. “~ John Steinbeck

Well, I suppose I wouldn’t be thorough if I only picked on Mega Millions and not picked on Power Ball.

The half billion drawing has already happened. For those people that I’ve read on Facebook about their plans to retire, get laid, go on a permanent vacation, or a huge Christmas shopping spree have already followed up with their disgust that they will be returning back to their place of work in the morning.

When odds are 1 in 175,000,000 — what did they honestly expect? Odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 5,000. And I don’t think there’s anyone out there lucky enough to have been struck by lightning 35 times in their life and be able to defeat those odds to win the Power Ball as well.

But since I already went off on a tangent about the lottery back in late March, this blog post is more about the foolery of people and their brainy ideas on Facebook to “SHARE” the winnings….. IF their numbers won. 

Pretty much its already sketchy because the numbers HAVE to win.

Have you seen this??????

If you are on Facebook, you probably have seen either some television or radio station offering to share the big prize if you “LIKE” and/or “SHARE” that particular post. It was the same way in March with Mega Millions.

This particular post that was floating around was from a local FOX television station from someplace. When I looked at it, you had to “LIKE” and “SHARE” before the drawing. It had an insane amount of people going for it. And even after the drawing, the number of “LIKES” and “SHARES” totaled almost 500,000.

The jackpot was just over $500 million. But hypothetically speaking if you were to take the lump sum to make sure that you can control the amount coming, after all of the taxes and what not, you’re only going to collect about $242.5 million.

So $242.5 million divided up by 500,000 people (and probably growing still) that is approximately $485 per person. And that’s IF they are successful in winning ALL numbers and they are honest about it by contacting everyone who participating in their scheme to seek out their mailing addresses.

Those who were too lazy to go out and buy their own lotto ticket and going in like a vampire on this idea, if they were legitimately contacted by the television or radio station, receive less than $500. And most likely would come in the form of  either a certified check or money order. 

Of course with the odds the way that they are, the more lottery tickets are purchased the better the odds are that someone is going to win. However on the other side of the coin the less likely that you will win.

Then I did see a lot of people asking on Facebook if  someone that they knew had won. But the obvious way of finding out whether or not a “friend” of yours on Facebook has actually won the entire Power Ball jackpot is that they will almost immediately disable their Facebook account mysteriously and disappear for about a year or two.

Or you can just wait to read about it in some online news article in the morning to find out as well. Most likely it will be like the Mega Millions in March, some group of people pooled their money and now they will be sharing their winnings.

Whether you played or not, I hope that you at least bought your OWN lottery tickets. Dambreaker and its Nation are seriously tired of seeing our own brains from rolling our eyes so much.

Tales Of The Lotto

“Here’s something to think about: How come you never see a headline like ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’? “~Jay Leno

First of all, Happy Birthday, S.K.! Much love to you on your birthday!

Today I bring to you two different tales of lottery winners. Both of them unique and impressive if I say so myself.

Andy & Nayel Ashkar from New York won a prize of $5 million dollars on a lotto ticket that they bought…………. SIX YEARS AGO.

That’s right, in 2006 the brothers had the winning ticket to that much money. One of the brothers however, was soon to be married and he wanted to make sure that his wife-to-be was going to marry him for his love and NOT for his money.

The brothers had eleven days before the winning lotto ticket was going to expire. So they finally turned it in to get their winnings.

In my opinion, I think that the engaged brother had the right idea to make sure that his bride would marry him for him, and not for his millions of dollars.

I also believe that waiting for a long time before turning it is a good idea. That way, you can estimate just how much you are going to receive and take the time to plan and budget on what you are actually going to do with all that cash. I think that it would help with dealing with the pressures of people coming to you asking for loans or monetary gifts. If you have decided what you are going to do with it all, and you have nothing to spare then you might not feel as bad when you tell people that you are not going to help them. And that is because you have already made your decision on what you are going to do with it.

On the other side of the lotto coin, so to speak, Sandeep Singh from Hyannis, Massachusetts recently won $30.5 million dollars playing the lotto. His story is a little more unique as apparently his girlfriend had dumped him just prior to him winning the huge amount of cash.

When the media asked him how he was dealing with the break up, he mentioned that he had been having a hard time with it. But he also mentioned that since he found out that he had won the lottery, he’s been doing a lot better and has been feeling so much better about himself. He’s not mentioned whether or not his former girlfriend has attempted to contact him or reconcile since the news broke of his winnings.  I just get the feeling that most likely his girlfriend MIGHT try it? But I cannot say for sure. Whatever he decides, will be totally on him. 

Personally I do not believe that I would allow someone back into my life. Especially since I was the person who got dumped. They obviously had their reason for it, so then why take them back? At the point that I was dumped was that moment that they had decided that they didn’t want it any more. What makes anyone think that they would change their mind that they wanted it again… ESPECIALLY if I have won the lottery??? I just would have a whole lot of suspicion about it.

What about you? Would you take back someone who came crawling back after the moment that they found out that you were suddenly richer? What would you do with your winnings?

And do you agree with the brothers to wait for six very long years before they turned in their winning ticket? Why or why not? It would be interesting to hear what you have to say.

 

 

 

 

Mega Millions Mania & Why You Probably Shouldn’t Play

“We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.”~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did you buy your lotto ticket? Are you ready? Being a little impatient for the numbers to be drawn? Do you know what you are going to do with all that money?

Guess what? MILLIONS of others have as well. They are feeling just like you! With 14 million tickets being purchased every singe hour. Good Luck!!

Nearly a half a billion dollars is up for grabs for the person fortunate enough to match every last number that is selected.

As wonderful it is to dream about what you will do with all of that cash, the harsh reality is that- you’re probably not going to win the entire jackpot. Your chances of becoming the next winner are so slim that you actually have better chances of dying in funky ways that one wouldn’t even consider.

Let me show you:

Winning it outright, the odds are 1 in 175,711,536.

That’s pretty huge, don’t you think!? I mean, if you bought over 175 million lotto tickets, you’d be CLOSE. But at $1.00 per lotto ticket, and you have spent that much just so that you can beat the odds, you’ve already got a ton of money and don’t need the near half billion.

You would have better odds of getting dealt a Royal Flush in a poker game, than winning the Mega Millions. And that is less than 1 in a million.

I think that my favorite here is that you have a 1 in 112,000,000 chance of getting killed by a vending machine. And that’s nearly the same odds of you winning this lotto.

But there are some very sticky situations with winning the Mega Millions jackpot.

Let’s just say for example that you win it all……… Well, congratulations!

#1- YOU BETTER HIDE! If you are announced as the winner of all that cash, you had better change your  cell phone, your home phone, your pager number, and disconnect your Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook profiles. Hiding is the only way that you are going to be safe from people who are out to get their hands on your winnings.

#2-RELATIONSHIPS ON THE ROCKS! Marriages crumble, so do your friendships and relationships. You have all of this purchasing power and even though the people in your inner circles are actually FAMILY, they will suck you dry as well. And because they are family, you will at first, be more than glad to help them. But what are you going to do when that one family member gets a little financial boost from your golden heart, and you begin to hear from them every other week wanting more? The lover that you have been with for so long will want to marry you quicker than you can correctly say “Absinthe”. And it would be for all the wrong reasons. If they cared, they’d love you just the same before you were the winner. Others who know you are the big jackpot winner will try to woo you in order to get closer to you. If you are the winner and are single, look out for all of the proposals!

#3- FUTURE FINANCIAL WOES! A lot of the times big lotto winners go and blow their stash. But instead of paying for every new home, car, and jet ski in cash, they use credit. And it ruins everything. Especially if the winner just keeps spending everything on credit and then eventually becomes broke and cannot pay their bills. Ultimately, they become bankrupt.

#4- HEALTH PROBLEMS! I am speaking more of mental health issues than anything. Sure there are those who just go crazy and live the party lifestyle and get hooked on drugs and alcohol… because they can. But sometimes winners will have to run away because those whom they thought were their friends, were nothing but greedy people. And now they’ve have turned down a dark path, having to BUY new friends. They become lonely and depressed. Especially if the money runs dry. They run the high risk for suicide.

#5- LEGAL ISSUES! With as many millions of people playing the same game out of so many states in the United States, there’s bound to be a couple of lotto tickets with the same numbers. And that will mean you will have to share it. You run the risk of being dragged into court because that other winner wants YOUR share! And you have to spend tons and tons of money to prove that you are a legit receiver of what you won. It could drag on and on until your money is vanished.

Now that I have farted into your Cheerio’s… allow me to piss into your Corn Flakes!

All day long, I’ve seen nothing but “Shared photos” on Facebook. These photographs were of Mega Millions lotto tickets. And they promised that if you “Like/Share” the photograph, you will be included in who gets the near half a billion dollars, should that specific lotto ticket be the big winner.

So I investigated one particular photo. It had over 200,000 likes and shares. Do you honestly believe that this person who has posted this photograph of their lotto ticket is going to go back and go through a list of over 200,000 names to give them a piece of the jackpot? No way!! They are going to get tired after going through a few hundred names and then give up because they see that there’s not going to be much of anything left for themselves.

Do you see why avarice and greed is one of the “Seven Most Deadly Sins”?

But the heck with all of that. I’ll take my chances of dating a supermodel. And that is only 1 in 178,100. A thousand times better than winning this Mega Millions. I’ll select Céline Dion (even though she is not technically a supermodel) since today is her 44th birthday, and ask her out to dinner. I’ll have better chances of having her (and her husband) saying “yes” to going out, rather than winning all of this cash. And even that is pretty big odds in itself.

Good luck, lotto players.