Do you feel lucky? The lottery.

[joesteph]

When I brought my boys to McDonald's after karate on Monday, the sodas had stickers on them, these meant to be peeled off to play the game "Monopoly" according to McDonald's rules. I was lucky, and that's not common for me; I peeled off a sticker and had an Instant Winner. It was a small Slurpy--which I wound up sharing, of course.

Whenever I've played the lottery, in NJ choosing the Pick-5 and Pick-6 (for sizeable prizes), and a get-together with other states for the Big Game (for a huge prize), I've rarely gotten anything. The scratch-offs sometimes win a few dollars, but it's gambling, so most will not be winners. I have spurts of doing these legal gambling games, so it's on and off, but I can't say I'm ahead by any means.

Yet there's always someone who seems to have tremendous luck with these lottery and/or scratch-off games.

Are you yourself a buyer of lottery tickets or scratch-offs? If you are, do you have luck with the game? Do you know someone else who has a fairly steady lucky streak with these?

[Shiv]

The whole lottery chance of winning has been researched a while ago in our country. When you buy 1 lottery ticked (13 euros) you have 1 to 1000000000000 chance to win, or sth like that It was really a really really really low chance. So it's useless, you have a way 2 small chance to win. But people see how big the jackpot is (I think its 25 million now here), they want to win, eventhough they know how small their chance is. And on tv, they have a program around the lottery, showing how people win thousands of euros.

It's all marketing to be honest

[joesteph]

I won again last night in the McDonald's game! Last time, I was an instant winner of a small Slurpy; this time, an instant winner of medium fries.

At the rate I'm winning free food, I'll probably put on another five pounds through prizes!