bobhhh
Why not enjoy your 11 million dollars and leave the lottery for poor folks who really need the slim chance at winning the money?

Because you like cheap thrills?

I'm not quite sure how many people in this thread actually buy lottery tickets on a regular or semi-regular basis. I know I do (semi-regularly, sometimes I forget.) Sure I hope to win but I know that the odds are really against me so I don't actually expect to win. But I like the feeling of possibility and it's cheap.

The lottery is not a charity here. It is a money making business that offers games on a weekly basis to those who pay. The prize is often more money so that you will continue to play. Many play, few actually win. Everyone who can pay can play though.

If the lottery was a charity then nobody but the poor should be playing. Although one would wonder how the lottery would operate as it is now if everyone who played was poor.

I do not think what he did was petty, selfish, or morally reprehensible. Now if he went into soup kitchens and got a free lunch, or went to a homeless shelter to sleep over then we can talk about how he's petty, selfish, and morally bankrupt. But as the lottery was never meant to be a service to the poor, I don't see why we have to discriminate who gets to pay to play.

You can't argue that lottery isn't considered, even puposely sold, as a "dollar and a dream". What sort of thrill can that bring to someone who has 11 million dreams already?

It's the attitude that bugs me. I read this in a blog once and forgive me if it's a bit off topic, but I feel it displays what I am talking about in respects to the paranoia and greed that characterizes this kind of behaviourf and the refusal to call it what it is:



Watch out. Rich people have truly gone berserk. The culture of unbridled greed has created a social pandemic where the blind pursuit of unreasonable wealth has turned otherwise enterprising millionaires into paranoid, Dickensian freaks.

Where am I going with this? Patience, my young padawan.

So I just heard about the Star Wars fan geek who had a website named Tatooine.com, it wasn't a content site, at least not SW content. He simply purchased the domain, which was available, and used it for his personal page, filling it with personal blogs, family photos, etc. He probably had wicked bragging rights with all his fan geek pals, that is until Jar-Jar slapped him with a cease and desist order. Seems George Lucas was hell bent on shutting this poor guy down for fear he might profit off of the SW MegaSuperGigaPlex Money Machine.

The theory goes something like this, "How do I know this guy won't figure out a way to rip me off? How do I know he isn't dishonest? Hey...hey stole Tatooine from me already..."

If it's not Mettallica boo hooing about file sharing, it's media moguls like GL flipping out over the most basic fair use issues. Somebody ought to tell Lucas that when he acts that way, in such a garish caricature of miserly greed, he resembles if nothing else, Henry Potter from "It's A Wonderful Life."

In the film's key scene, George Bailey levels an impassioned condemnation on old man Potter for attempting to acquire the sputtering Bailey Building & Loan, not for the measly $$ he would gain, but because it's the one remaining asset in town he has yet to own. Such utter disregard for the very fans that elevated him to super rich altitudes is just another example that rich dickheads have finally gone insane. No amount of money can sate these people, and woe be to you or me if you get in the way of them and their cadre of vicious lawyers.

Tatooine.com probably never came within a parsec of profiting from GL, but we'll never know now because the guy became fearful of litigation and voluntarily gave up his domain. The concept of fair use was squashed by an army of well-paid barristers that circumvent due process through fear. GL can rest easy knowing that he redressed this theft of Luke's birthplace namesake.

Only somebody ought to remind GL that it was he who first pilfered this name from a small village in Tunisian near where the first SW was filmed.

A little hamlet called Tataouine. He probably meant no harm, though. Perhaps he just thought that his appropriation of their name was simply an issue of fair use.

Well, I can't say that I see the lotto as a "dollar and a dream". The odds are insurmountable, so I don't delude myself into thinking that I can win. However, I know that someone DOES win every week, and the only way to be eligible is to pay a dollar. I'll blow a dollar on a soda without thinking twice, or super sizing or getting an ice cream or god knows what else. So a buck when i'm in line at the gas station... woopty doo. I'm sure this rich guy thinks the same thing. Its not that he really wants more money, its more of a "fuck it, its just a dollar" thing. If he wins, swell... but he's not really expecting to win.

Any states that use the "dollar and a dream" slogan seen in the B&B cartoons are being irresponsible. Way to enhance revenue at the expense of those who can least afford it.

Of course poor people play the lottery. And so do gambling addicts. And so do some rich people. And without fail, it is the right of everyone over 18.

I'd think it would be far more maddenning to everyone that a member of the board of directors at Nameless Inc. gets a bonus of 500 years of YOUR salary while laying off 3000 people than some rich dude laying down a few bucks to play the Powerball.

Perspective.

The thing that makes me mad about this is that he's getting winning lotto tickets, instead of people who really need them. it's like waiting in line for something, and having someone else cut in front of you and getting the last one. it's terrible.

Alot of people involved in goverment are in fact very crooked, and really don't care about you. I would imagine that some of them have no idea what its like to live like the majority (not rich).
But i really wouldnt make to big of a deal about this guy playing the lotto, i mean he probably won't win BIG money off of it, and its a proven fact that you will lose more money playing the lotto than you will make off of it...

I bet he has a huge vault at his house filled with gold coins that he swims in just like scrooge mcduck...only naked....

That's a horrible image.

Actually, the lottery is a tax on the stupid.

i buy them once in a while. it's fun to imagine what a piece of paper for $1 can do for you. but i know that the chance of winning is pretty slim, but it's still fun ^_^

Hawk

bongotezz
the real question is how much did he spend to get that 270k? probablly a lot more.

I would imagine you're right.

Then, that guy is a Dee-dee-dee.

Did I say that right?

bobhhh
It's the attitude that bugs me. I read this in a blog once and forgive me if it's a bit off topic, but I feel it displays what I am talking about in respects to the paranoia and greed that characterizes this kind of behaviourf and the refusal to call it what it is:

Well, there's a much better explanation of GL and Metallica .

But yeah, if he payed his $1, then he deserves to win, just like any body else (unless of course, it's Shirley Jackson that's hosting it).

People get carried away with thier greed of money

horseboy

bobhhh
It's the attitude that bugs me. I read this in a blog once and forgive me if it's a bit off topic, but I feel it displays what I am talking about in respects to the paranoia and greed that characterizes this kind of behaviourf and the refusal to call it what it is:

Well, there's a much better explanation of GL and Metallica .

But yeah, if he payed his $1, then he deserves to win, just like any body else (unless of course, it's Shirley Jackson that's hosting it).

Shirley Jackson, I still remember how chilled i got reading that story the first time.

Of course he deserves it, but in a way you also deserve to keep stuffing your face at a buffet, but most respectable folks would look on with dismay at that sort of gluttoness behaviour, when 15 plates in the guy burped long enough to say, "hey the sign says all you can eat, doesn't it"

Basically I'm not saying he's not within his rights, just a bit grabby for my semsibilities. Probably why I am not wealthy.

The average lottery player (a working poor person) spends around $30 a month in lottery tickets and games. that money invested in the growth IRA or mutual fund earning around 10-12% over the couse of your working life will get you around 2 million bucks when you retire. People are too impatient and greedy, but math does not lie! Excluding the guy this tread is about as the exception, the rule is that most rich people do not play the lottery, they do not have debt, they do not rent to own etc. they save and invest their money, that's how they stay rich!

heymelby
People are too impatient and greedy, but math does not lie!

Yeah and if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass a hoppin.

I'm not sure what my point is here, I just love that aphorism.

You can't win if you don't gamble in the first place.
But you can lose sooo much if you do.

but people who have already won, seem to want more?