6.29.2008

Florida Lottery Gas Madness


The Florida Lottery has found a new gimmick to rake in the big bucks. Given the rising gas prices that make headlines nearly every day, what could be more enticing to sell a lottery ticket than guaranteeing you a chance to win a lifetime's worth of gasoline? Here's how the program works:
  1. You buy one or more tickets. Each has a unique number printed on them. You don't get to pick the number.
  2. At the time of purchase, you may be an "instant winner" of $25. Over 100,000 people will be instant winners.
  3. Drawings are held every week for 8 weeks.
  4. 56 random ticket numbers are pulled from the computer.
  5. The 1st number wins $250,000
  6. The 2nd thru 6th number wins a lifetime of gas (you get $2600 in gas cards every year).
  7. The 7th thru 56th number wins one year of gas ($2600).
So, Florida will be dishing out $250,000 in instant winners, $2 million for eight $250,000 winners, over $2 million in lifetime gas winners, and over $1 million in one-year gas winners. Overall, more than $5 million will be distributed to winners. Not counting the instant winners, 448 people will win the bigger prizes.

Let me say that again...ONLY 448 people will win. And while the prizes may seem significant, they don't compare to the potential for winning other lotteries. Worse still, these tickets cost $5! I hate lotteries, but I really hate expensive lotteries. Even though I know my chances of winning won't change, I'd much rather have five $1 tickets in my hand than one $5 ticket. It's a psychological thing.

So let's look at some odds. Just for the lottery to break even...that is take in $5 million to match what they will be giving away, they need to sell one million tickets at $5 apiece. And they'd be losing money at that. If you bought one ticket, your odds at winning one of the big money prizes is 448 out of 1,000,000 or about 1 in 2,232.

But let's look at reality. Reality says that they are going to sell way more than a million tickets over 8 weeks of play, especially given their advertising gimmick. Their website says:
For example, if 350,000 tickets are sold for the week, your odds of winning would be 56 in 350,000 or 1 in 6, 250. Those would be great odds for winning $250,000 or FREE GAS for a year or a lifetime.
Really? Great odds? First, you just know that they are going to sell waaaaaayyyy more than 350,000 tickets, which means the odds are going to be significantly different. Second, we should put things in perspective. Below are 6,250 zeros. There really should be at least four times that many because it's not much of a stretch to imagine that they will sell at least 1.5 million tickets each week. Anyway, behind one of these zeros is $250,000. Are you going to pay $5 to guess which one? Oh wait...you don't even get a chance to make the guess. Some computer gives you a number, and some computer tells you where the prize is hidden.

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Not great odds. Not a great deal. Save your money. Invest your money. Don't fall for the gimmicks. Sure, somebody has to win...but I'm willing to bet it won't be you.

2 comments:

Viagra Online said...

with the current economic and fuel situation, this promo is so good for the wallet, just think in this time and someone come to you and say it "ey take this, free gas".

Anonymous said...

This new gimmick has a lot to give you savings and freebies. Keep it up!

oil change miami fl