North Carolina man wins powerball prize with fortune-cookie numbers
I don't play the lottery. I know that from the statistics that there is almost no chance that anyone is going to get ahead in life using this method. Of course every now and then someone ends up winning big but as someone who knows a person that won $20,000 on a scratch card can attest, most of these people end up burning through the money at a very rapid pace because the irresponsible financial methodologies that lead them to getting involved in the lottery in the first place extends to the rest of their lives as well.
Most of the people who win millions on jackpots are likely to declare bankruptcy in 3 to 5 years. I have never won the lottery and keep my finances in check and live within my means. I have never declared bankruptcy.
That being said, people still spend an absolute fortune on the legalized and state-supported lottery system every year and some people have a system for choosing the numbers. One man, just had some Chinese food.
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Ernesto Sorzano of Huntersville, North Carolina bought some Chinese takeout and just on a whim played the "lucky numbers" that appear on all the tickets. 4 of the 5 numbers that were chosen for him by the fortune cookie matched, and he won $500,000.
This is certainly good news for anyone and there is of course very little chance that Sorzano has actually spent 500K on lotto tickets in his life so he is one of the lucky ones. In order for some to win big, many have to lose small.
The crazy thing to me about the lotto is that it is state run. A state run lotto is the only legal form of lottery that exists in America and as far as I know anywhere else in the world as well. Yet when you win the lotto, like Ernesto did, you have to pay taxes on those winnings. He will take home just over $350,000. I find that extremely upsetting. The government has a contest, you have to pay to be in the contest using wages that you were taxed on to receive, you win that contest, and now you have to pay the government part of the money you won from the contest they are the sole distributor of. It's madenss.
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Ernesto has said that he intends to buy a house with his winnings. I hope the Ernesto has the good sense to purchase a house that is in his financial means because that's another wonderful aspect of government. If you buy a house or land with the money that you were already taxed to earn, you will have to pay taxes to acquire said house / land, and then you have to pay annual taxes to keep said house/land.
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If Ernesto buys a house that is out of his ability to pay said taxes on, Ernesto is going to lose that house / land and if he waits too long to realize this some "vulture" will rip him off on the sale as well.
I hope that he has the good sense to look to the future, but just like the many big lotto winners that have come before only to declare bankruptcy 3-5 years later, he probably doesn't.
The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.
It's kind of upsetting. I don't know any financially successful people that regularly play the lottery.
Good post. Quite interesting article. I didn't know that almost all of the people who win millions on jackpots are likely to declare bankruptcy in 3 to 5 years. But in principle, this is logical. Personally I usually buy lotto tickets just for fun, but several times I won good money! And what about you?
I bought a few scratch tickets here and there in my life but never with any sort of regularity. I won a free ticket a few times but nothing of any sort of substance. The only sort of gambling that I engage in are charity events at the local Elks Lodge - the idea isn't really to win but to make money for the charity. Normally 50% of the amount put in goes to a winner but the rest goes to whatever charity (normally for kids) that the lodge chooses.
I agree with you almost completely. But it's not that taxes eat up most of the winnings. The fact is that the chances are actually extremely small. If we are talking about a serious choice, then I would prefer to use judi online. This site has a lot of gambling. Sometimes I choose simple slots, sometimes I start a game of poker. But I know that my chances of hitting the jackpot are much higher than that of the guy who bought the lottery ticket.