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January 6, 2007
Do My Favorite Niece and Favorite Nephew Deserve Lottery Tickets?
By:
The Dude on the Right
On my
MySpace page blog I listed a few of my goals for the New Year. Along
with a Chicago Bear's Super Bowl win was my winning the
Mega Millions jackpot
when it was over $100 Million. But now that the jackpot is over $100
Million, I have created a new dilemma for myself, especially with my big win
with yesterday's jackpot, a $10 win that gives me the cash for buying new
tickets for Tuesday's drawing.
You might ask, "What kind of dilemma is there when buying lotto tickets?" but because I'm nuts, well, here goes.
Many, many years ago, when I finally had some of my own income and would buy a few lotto tickets when the jackpot got into that "What the hell would I do with fifty million dollars?" range, rather than, in my head, bask in the glory of being able to imagine the great new house, a cool car, not working for the man, well, my thoughts turned to my family. Not so much mom and dad, other than figuring I would have to pay to get their phone number changed and maybe buy them some cool stuff, but rather the thoughts turned to my brother and sister. If they were in a financial bind would they come to me for help? Hell, if they weren't in a financial bind, would they come to me expecting a hand-out? And even if I gave them something, what would stop them from coming back to me later, looking for more?
And so I developed a "buying lottery ticket's" plan.
If the jackpot was small I would buy a quick-pick ticket or two. If I won - great! But if the jackpot was larger I would buy five tickets, all with the same numbers, based on my family. My thinking was this: I buy five tickets, all with the same numbers, and they come in. I give my brother one ticket in exchange for a dollar and I give my sister one ticket in exchange for a dollar. I keep the other three tickets, with the agreement between us being that I will take care of any need's mom and dad might have (since I have the other two tickets), and if any of us are fiscally irresponsible with our winnings, in the future, well, we can't go to any sibling looking for a hand-out. We would all be on our own with what where my winnings and now part of those are theirs. So say the jackpot was $100 million and my five tickets were the only winners? That leaves my brother and sister with $20 million each, and me with a nice $60 million dollars. (On a side note, imagine if there were six winning tickets, and I have five of them - that other person first finds out that they won and thinks they have $100 million, then they find out that there are six winning tickets and they are still happy because they at least won over $16 million bucks, then they find out that I have $83ish million dollars worth of tickets to their $16ish million. Would they be mad at me? I'm sorry I digressed. Back to dilemma-ing.)
But this morning I came up with my new, "buying lotto ticket's" dilemma.
I have a favorite nephew, and I have a favorite niece. In fact, right now, they are my only nephew and my only niece. And I wondered, in the shower this morning, if I should now include them in my lotto ticket buy? My nephew is in college, so he is supposed to be an adult, and my niece will be 16 in a few weeks, making her an adult in at least a country or two in the world. Does this now mean they deserve their own tickets? And really, can I trust my sister to make sure they are taken care of, or would my fear of them coming to Uncle Dude, looking for money in the future, become a new reality?
But then the financial reality of including them in my ticket buy came in.
Let's see: Instead of five tickets I buy seven. The jackpot is still $100 million bucks and I have the only winning tickets. Instead of being worth $20 million each, now each ticket is worth about $14.3 million. That means my brother, sister, niece, and nephew find themselves with $14.3 million apiece, not a bad chunk of change for them thanks to my good fortune. Meanwhile my jackpot diminished from $60 million bucks to take care of myself, my mom, and my dad, to a paltry $42.9 million.
So I have to decide if my favorite niece and favorite nephew are worth a little over $17 million bucks to me, or should I count on their mother to make sure they are taken care with her winnings?
Then it occurred to me that instead of five tickets with the same numbers, well, I could up that to ten. With that same $100 million jackpot each ticket would be worth $10 million. I'd give one ticket to my brother, one to my sister, one to my favorite niece, and one to my favorite nephew, leaving me with six tickets, and I'm back at $60 million buckaroos! Now my brother and sister are pissed because their winnings went from $20 million to $10 million (and especially my brother since my niece and nephew aren't his kids), my niece and nephew are pissed because if I weren't so greedy about the $60 million they'd each have another $4.3 million, and if there happened to be another person with a winning ticket, that poor bastard goes from winning $100 million to less than $10 million, all because I wanted to stake my claim at that $60 million dollar mark.
See, I told you I was nuts!
I've got a $10 winning Mega Millions ticket and now I don't know how to spend it. I could buy ten Mega Millions tickets all with the same numbers with the potential to piss off a lot of people; I could buy seven Mega Millions tickets all with the same number and maybe lose $17 million bucks for me; I could stick with my "buying five tickets" plan and hope my sister takes care of her kids; Or I could, oh hell, maybe I should just buy two "Quarter Pounder With Cheese Meals" and be happy for an hour, until I realize that it means I will probably also lose a bet with my sister.
You see, I'm nuts, and also with dilemmas!
That's it for this one! I'm The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
Posted by Rightdude at January 6, 2007 8:42 PM
Comments
Better lock your door they are coming to take you away. I have come to a conclusion. You think way to much. :))
Love your sister
Posted by: Sister at January 7, 2007 3:28 PM
