The Lottery Experiment, July.
So a quick recap, people are always talking about how they win big when gambling, but they never talk about the amount they have lost over the years. I decided to do an experiment, buy a ticket once a week and keep track of how much I spent vs. how much I win. At the end of June I was up $69.
Week Five
I started the month off with a $2 ticket calling to me, the numbers all lined up and the jackpot was $5000, and just like in June the Sisters Fate were telling me to buy it. However, when I pulled it out of the rack I discovered that one of the other employees had pulled two tickets and then pushed them back with the higher numbered ticket on top (a customer probably changed their mind). The problem is that we sell tickets in order so they can track them and match up the total at the end of the shift with the sales on the register. Also if someone broke in and stole tickets we could contact the lottery officials and let them know which ones had been legitimately sold and which ones to block. Since the tickets weren't in proper order the Sisters Fate numbers were no longer calling to me. I decided to let my lucky coin pick so I spun it on the glass display and it landed on a dollar ticket with a potential payout of $800 and I bought it. The thing turned out to be a $5 winner! I'm off to a good start.
btw, a woman came in and bought 4 of the tickets from the same game so if I didn't go with my lucky coin she would have gotten the $5 ticket. I find those little twists of fate interesting.
I had to go to work on Saturday and I found a Second Chance ticket with a potential $50,000 jackpot so covering someone else's shifts worked out, it would be even better if I win the jackpot. Meanwhile another scratch ticket was calling to me, a customer's total came to an even $8.00, the next customer needed a receipt for pump #8 and there was an 8 on the ticket in slot number 8. However I'm sticking to my rules and only buying one ticket a week on Friday so I passed. However if some time in the next week I hear a customer bought a big winner ticket at the station I'm gonna be pissed at myself.
(update, no sign that someone bought a big winner)
Week Six
I'm always mentioning tickets that are calling to me and this week was no different. On Monday the date was 7/7 and if you added up the numbers of the year it comes to 7 (if you skip the 20 part). The ticket in the number 7 ticket slot was the number 007. It's as if the entire universe was telling me "you have to buy this ticket today!" It was $2 and the potential payout is $5000, again, 2 plus 5 = 7. So even though I vowed I was going to ignore the whole number thing and only buy a ticket on Friday I broke the rule. And the Universe then reminded me that numbers are just a human construct and don't really mean anything other than keeping track of stuff. So I was down another two dollars.
I was watching a travel show and the hosts stopped at a "lucky statue" to touch it on the well worn spot. I figured it would be a great idea to find some lucky thing and put on the counter by the lottery display, but what? At first I thought about going with a classic, the Laughing Buddha, however considering the current political climate I thought I might get accused of being religiously insensitive or doing cultural appropriation so I kept looking. Next I considered an animal figure or a Norwegian troll, however in a store full of stuff it might get lost in the background of visual noise or people would think that it was for sale. Perhaps the best way to go would be the most simplistic, a lucky rock. I started looking around my house (for reasons I won't go in to I have a number of interesting rocks at home) but none felt right. I decided the best thing to do was to go to the mountain and look around. The Sisters Fate must have felt that it was a good idea because my brother called and he was heading up the mountain and invited me to come along. I went to a spot where I knew there were exposed rocks due to erosion and within 10 minutes I had found it, the perfect lucky rock. It wasn't too big so it took up too much room on the counter and it wasn't too small so people wouldn't notice it. It was oval-ish and flat on the bottom so it wouldn't roll around, it was mostly smooth but had a few wrinkles for character. And it is quartz so it has a translucent quality plus it has small flakes of pyrite so it has a glittery effect. I wrote Lucky Rock on it and underneath I put the disclaimer "Luck Not Guaranteed" so nobody could sue me. When I went in on Monday I put it on the counter next to the lottery display. Several people commented on it, one guy touched it, one guy offered to buy it and a couple of people picked it up and saw the disclaimer followed by a good laugh. (A few weeks later a guy bought a scratcher and then rubbed it on the Lucky Rock but he left before checking it so I don't know how that worked out)
The problem with the Luck Rock was it was untested, if anyone asked if it worked what would I say? I know, I promised I would only buy one ticket a week but this is for science. So I put my left hand on the lucky rock and spun my lucky coin with my right hand and then bought the ticket it had landed on. It was a $2 ticket with a potential payout of a $1000. Anyhow, perhaps the rock is lucky in other ways, perhaps we were going to get into a horrible car crash on the way back from the mountain but just as I picked it up the car that would have smashed into us had a flat tire, thus changing the timeline. You don't know, you weren't there and you can't say that didn't happen. Anyhow I spent $4 on tickets this week even though I said I was going to stick with the original plan of just one ticket per week.
Meanwhile a regular customer came in with a series of winning tickets and she was pretty happy about it. She decided to share her good fortune and gave me a $5 tip. I told her she didn't have to do it but she insisted. So, since it was lottery related do I count it in my lottery fund? I decided I might as well.
I also found another second chance ticket in the trash and have another entry for the $50,000 jackpot. I'll find out when they do the drawing at the end of the regular game.
Week Seven
On Monday I was bored so I spun my Lucky Coin on the display glass. It jumped over the frame and came to a stop on the counter. I figured that was its way of telling me to not choose a ticket today. Later a woman came in and bought a stack of random tickets thus reshuffling the packs. Is it a sign or just coincidence?
You'd think I had learned my lesson, numbers mean nothing and I should just randomly pick a ticket. However this time the signs were clear, everything was there, the numbers, the general atmosphere, several matching numbers from outside sources including customer's purchase, I even spun my lucky coin over the display case and it came to a stop on the very ticket with the good numbers, that I didn't buy earlier in the month. So I bought the $2 ticket with a potential payout of $5000 and, lost. Of course believing in "all the signs" is one of the pitfalls of gambling and why there are mega casinos in Las Vegas.
Week Eight
The Universe is messing with me again. On Monday I noticed the numbers on a ticket almost lined up perfectly. The Game Number ended in 39, the pack number ended in 39 and it was ticket number...38. In order to get the perfect ticket I would have to buy two of them, and they are $3 each, but have a jackpot of $50,000. Do I want to spend that much money to once again have the Universe laughing at me? Then a customer drove off without their change and how much was it? $2.39 cents. Well, I have a week to wait and see if someone buys the lower number ticket and then I'll just be spending the $3.
OK, I give up, I gotta follow this experiment wherever it may lead. I said I was going to only buy low end tickets however this week something happened that falls into one of the pitfalls of gambling, believing that "something is about to hit, and big." I was still waiting for someone to buy a ticket so that the good numbers would line up on the one pack, meanwhile several people came in and started buying tickets out of a different game. In the end they bought a total of 15 tickets, and one of the customers kept scratching them off and checking them. She won a couple of times and lost on more. It set up the problem of "this pack is about to hit". I knew that it probably wouldn't but I'm doing an experiment and sometimes I have to go with the cliche the Universe hands me, plus it was pretty exciting for a few seconds. So, I bought a $10 ticket with a potential payout of $500. That may seem low but these tickets have more winning prizes and thus better odds. I justified the purchase as part of the experiment and, lost.
Also, they are changing my schedule so I'll be buying tickets on Wednesday instead of Friday. I don't think it will change the outcome of the results but you never know, I mean gamblers do believe in following a pattern. I'm not really a good gambler.
Someone told me there was a key for the shed out back, and it was somewhere in the office. The room is a giant mess by the way. I did a quick search but didn't have time to do a real deep dive. Anyhow I found an unscratched lottery ticket hidden in the back of the desk so I checked it on the machine. The game had come to an end so it was invalid. I went ahead and scratched off the boxes and followed the instructions. Not a winner. But at the same time it didn't cost me anything.
Towards the middle of the week a guy came in with a stack of tickets he wanted checked. He had two winners and a stack of losers. He asked what we do with the tickets after we check them, I said I tear a gap out of the bar code on the winners so they can't be scanned again and the rest get tossed in the trash. I asked if he wanted his loser tickets back (I didn't call them 'loser tickets' btw) but he said no. And that is how I got two more second chance tickets to enter on line. It could be worth $25,000 (I may not have mentioned that to the guy but there are ads all over the building and information on the ticket so it's his own fault)
Week Nine
With the schedule change I'm buying tickets earlier so it means this month I'll buy a ticket before Friday and will end the month with 5 weeks worth of purchases.
Someone finally bought the ticket out of the pack I was waiting for, the one with all the numbers that lined up. The game number ended with 39, the pack number ended with 39 and the individual ticket number was 39. And last week there was even a customer who left their change on the pump, $2.39. I felt that I had no choice, I had to buy it, a $3 ticket with a potential payout of $50,000 and, once again numbers don't mean anything.
Later in the day when I was cleaning I found an unchecked ticket in the trash by the kiosk, the barcode was still covered, so I scratched it off and it was a winner! A free $3 ticket. I wish I had found it before I spent the money on the other ticket. Anyhow I decided to get one of the Second Chance tickets, it's $3 with a potential payout of $5,000 and...I didn't win. But it's a Second Chance ticket so I entered it on line for a chance to win $3000. Wouldn't that be fun, winning on a ticket that someone threw in the trash.
I also have been thinking of keeping track of what I refer to as "Tip Money", cash I find at work or when people say "keep the change". Anyhow this would be a way to pay for tickets without using paycheck money. One year I kept track of everything I found and it came out to over $400. I ended the week with $2 in coins so I figured I would do a test, I bought a $2 ticket, it's a lower end one with a potential payout of $50 but there are more prizes, and I won! Except it was another free $2 ticket and couldn't get the cash, I had to get another ticket. I decided to go for a different $2 ticket with potential payout of $5000, and lost. Perhaps doing a Gambler's Justification, coming up with reasons to spend money on gambling, wasn't worth it at all.
At the end of the month I had spent $33, won $55, found $30 and a free $3 ticket, got a $5 tip and won two "free" tickets totaling $5. My lottery pot is up to $52 dollars but that is down $17 from the start of the month. And I've entered 10 tickets in the second chance drawings.
This month was mostly about experimenting, playing the numbers, buying a ticket that were due to hit and spending extra money that had come my way. It was a losing month. I also started to think about the Gambler's Rush, the reason people become addicted to gambling. Basically every ticket in the display case is a Schrodinger's ticket, every unscratched ticket is both the big jackpot winner and a total waste of your money at the same time, the only way to know which is to buy and check it. There is a moment of anticipation, an adrenaline rush as you wait for the reveal, your heart beats a little faster and you imagine what you'll spend your winnings on. When you actually do win, regardless of how small you get a thrill, and even if you lose you still have that slight leftover buzz. Addicted gamblers want more of that rush and are willing to spend more and more to get it, it isn't the amount won or lost but the thrill of it all. I started coming up with reasons to buy tickets but by the end of the month I wasn't getting that buzz anymore. I think by the time I get to the end I'll be tired of spending money and scratching tickets. I'll probably go back to ignoring the numbers and the payouts, other than keeping track of the value of the ticket. I'll just write this month off as experiments that proved systems don't work.
And now, on to August.
