For as much as I love helping people try to "beat" the lottery I have a real hard time understanding the fuss about these huge jackpots. Most probably there will be more than one winner this time around so no one will ever receive half a billion dollars... especially after taxes. I wonder if anything else in the world can cause such a frenzy and so many daydreams. Money. The Root Of All Evil,lol. It's true we can't live without it....but for the unnamed soul(s) who will wind up winning I wonder how they will live with it.....how much their life will change. And will it be for the better?

Sure...everybody could use extra money....but THAT much money? I don't know about other people but I like my life the way it is. I don't like change. But that's just me. And money like that is life changing...not only yours but your families and friends and whoever else you decided to share with. And all the strangers that will pop out of the shadows who will gladly want to share it with you. 

What!! I must be nuts,right? Who wouldn't want to win a jackpot? I guess it's just that I think about the 99% of people who will be crushed when the winning numbers are drawn. To get your hopes up so high and in a second they are gone. It's the chance we take and all part of the game,of course. But still heartbreaking.

But don't get me wrong...I DO love to see people win and it would be wonderful to hear of one of our LP family winning it. But for the others...it's the crash I feel in their hearts...the letdown. That's a hard pill to swallow...especially when you've been playing for years or in the bottom of your gut you had the hunch that tonight is your night.

That's why I wish they wouldn't have these astronomical jackpots. I wish 500 people could win a million dollars each. That would benefit so many more people. A million bucks is nothing to sneeze at. That would be more manageable in real life. When you've got a hundred million dollars to your name it could get out of hand really easy. How many times have we seen these big winners blow it all pretty quickly and are broke in a matter of years? But a million bucks would be nice. Even half a million!

So that's why I don't understand why people will turn out in droves for hundreds of millions and not for just a regular jackpot.

How many people can say they've won any jackpot in their lives? Does is have to be for half a billion to count? We'd all be pretty happy to win even $50,000,wouldn't you say? For a buck? Where else can you get that kind of money? But for a lot of people that's not enough. 

It's times like these when I think how difficult it still is to predict a Pick 3 straight! How many times can you say you've won one of those in your life? 

But,again,it's not enough. The bigger the jackpot...the bigger the fever. We will never see 100 people stand in line to win $500. It just doesn't sound worth it,does it? But half a billion...that's another story. For a few people the story will have a Happy Ending. For the rest of us it will just be The End. 

Until the next time the jackpot rolls around in the neighborhood of a billion dollars :)