Yes, that’s right, I won the lottery! Specifically, the Christmas Day drawing of Mega Millions. I matched one number plus the mega ball number to win $3.

Obviously, this is not a life changing sum, but it’s a good opportunity to reflect on my thoughts about the lottery.

I received ten $1 lottery tickets as a Christmas present. Seven of these tickets didn’t match any numbers. Two of them matched one number, but that doesn’t pay anything. And one of them matched one number plus the mega ball number, for a $3 payout.

Since the tickets were a gift, the $3 is pure profit. If I had bought the $1 ticket myself, it would have been a $2 profit. If I had bought all ten tickets myself, it would have been a $7 loss.

Two of the numbers on the winning ticket were only one off from a match. But even if I had been lucky enough to match three numbers and the mega ball, it would have only paid $150. A nice little bonus, but not much considering the chances of it happening are 1 in 13,781.

We all know the odds in the lottery are against us, but sometimes we forget just how much. The smallest significant prize is $10,000, and the odds of winning it are 1 in 689,065. This is less likely than the chances of being dealt a royal flush (1 in 649,739).

The smallest prize that could be considered life changing is $250,000, and the odds are 1 in 3,904,701. This is less likely than the chances that you’ll spot a UFO today (3,000,000 to 1).

The jackpot was $16 million, and the odds of winning it were 1 in 175,711,536. I wish I knew the odds up digging up $16 million worth of gold in your backyard.

The overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 40. This is almost negligible compared to the odds of winning a prize on a hand of blackjack, which are roughly 1 in 2. Blackjack seems like a brilliant investment, by comparison.

Despite the odds, I think playing the lottery is OK if you see it as entertainment. If the fun and anticipation is worth $1 to you whether you win or not, then by all means do it. We all have entertainment expenses. Some lotteries supposedly support education, so if that’s true (and that’s a big “if”), and you want to support education, then that effectively reduces the cost of your entertainment.

But to me it’s not worth it. If I bought a $1 ticket, my fear of losing that dollar would be greater than the thrill of winning a modest prize.

I know this because I once participated in a Super Bowl pool at work (for the fun and camaraderie), paying $10 and winning a $100 payout for being randomly assigned numbers that matched the last digits of the scores at the end of the third quarter. The $90 profit was a nice feeling, but no match for my concern about losing $10.

The risk of the lottery dwarfs the risk of buying some stocks or starting a business. Any remotely reasonable investment is way, way more likely to pay off than the lottery, where a 100% loss is nearly certain on any given ticket. You’re also likely to learn something from the experience when you invest in something you have some control over. And people who win lottery jackpots are likely to lose it all.

Don’t invest in games of pure chance, invest in things that matter.

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