Is this double the chance or double the greed?

Since the day the friendly neighborhood storekeeper would first let me, I’ve been tossing my money to the various provincial lottery organizations. Year after year I pick my numbers, pay my money and wait for my ship to come in. Like those 649 commercials would say “you can’t win, if you don’t have a ticket”. So I was hooked, knowing full well that it’s a suckers bet at best, but like many Canadians, I’m of the opinion that it can’t hurt to tempt the fates once and a while. The lottery is my own personal contribution to some voluntary taxation for our various governments, which goes unrewarded not only at jackpot time but at income tax time as well!

Through the years I’ve dutifully handed over my cash for that little square piece of paper with the numbers on it, checking first the newspaper or television and more recently the lotto corp. website, to see if my life is about to change. Needless to say, it hasn’t yet.

When we got married we picked a bunch of numbers to put down on a regular basis, paid our cash and waited and waited some more, oh how patiently we’ve waited. Needless to say, we’re still waiting.

A number of years ago the Lottery corporations got together and decided we needed to have fun twice a week, so they added a Wednesday draw to the 6/49; it was a weighty decision to make. Do we just stick with our regular Saturday draw or go to the twice a week variety. This would mean doubling our investment, with a less than solid rate of return. Superstition won out, how could I look at myself the next day if I should happen to notice my numbers won on the Wednesday draw, and I only had tickets for Saturday.

So we paid, we checked and we then tossed out. There have been a few wins over the years 60 dollars here, 80 dollars there, once even a thousand on the extra, which coincided with car insurance time (not to look a gift horse in the mouth). But Alas, there have been no millions, no smiling pictures in the paper accepting our cheque. No newspaper articles about how we’ve won it big and have big plans.

By far the Lotto Corporation has made much more from us, than we from it. Which brings us to tomorrow’s draw, the NEW 6/49! Bigger jackpots! A New prize category! Double the price!!! That’s right, now instead of a loonie, it will take a twoonie to chase your dreams. Making for an inflationary spiral of 50%, this in an industry that sells what? A chance at random fate?

Checking in with my local newsstand bookie, he tells me there is quite a backlash to this change. Customers are set in their ways; they were comfortable with the old way, simply plop down a dollar and hope for the best. Now it’s more like you're selecting your RRSP portfolio, should I have shares in 6/49, a little BC49 and maybe a couple of options on the Super 7. Suddenly the painless ten dollars a week will become twenty. All for a little square piece of paper with numbers on it, no service, no product, just random fate.

I’m told many of the old time players in Podunk will be cutting back on their numbers, halving the usual dollar amount spent. I’ve eavesdropped on their conversations as they berate the poor clerk, calling the change nothing but cash grab from the lottery corp. How long will they stay with their rebellion is anyone’s guess. Once the jackpot reaches the dizzying heights of the 20 or 30 millions we’ll all be back I’m sure.

But for now it’s cost cutting time. I’ll be going over my numbers and picking my real, real favorites and then place half of them on a new play card. The rest I’ll put away far, far away, where I can’t see them ever again. Fortunately my memory is not the encyclopedic trap that knows every number I’ve ever played. So while I may feel a familiar twinge if I see six numbers that I think I recognize, I’ll be sufficiently unsure as to not worry about it. And believe it when I tell you, I’m not going to go back to check, there will be no need for me to see which ones I used to play, no one should tempt fate that much.

So while it’s true that we can’t win without a ticket, the other side of that argument is that we only need one set of numbers to win! For now I'm taking a voluntary tax cut, on my voluntary tax donations. All I can say is I hope my number comes up real soon, to spare me any more of these hard, hard decisions of life!