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September 7, 2011
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Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on May 19, 2012
If you want to know what gives you the best overall odds just look at what percentage of sales is returned in prizes. MM, PB, and most jackpot games pay out 50% of sales in prizes. Some scratch games pay out 60%.
If you want to start figuring a bunch of "what if's" or factoring in small prizes and the low chance of winning a really big prize, only you can decide what makes sense. Personally, figuring that the chances of winning a jackpot are extremely small, I consider the real pay out for most jackpot games to be closer to 20% than to 50%. OTOH, while winning 50, 100, or 250 thousand would be very nice, that's not going to let you retire and spend the rest of your life on easy street unless you're already at least 90% complete with a solid retirement plan.
As for being comfortable with 70k per year, how long do you plan on living? At a modest inflation rate of 2% today's 70k will be a little under 43k in 25 years. Dying the day after I take my last dollar out of the bank might happen, but my plan is to not die before running out of money. Since I don't plan on dying for at least 40 or 50 years my income has to be much more than my current needs before I retire.
If the "real" pay out on JP games is 20% why did you open your post saying the pay out is 50%??
United States
Member #116,263
September 7, 2011
20,243 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on May 19, 2012
If you want to know what gives you the best overall odds just look at what percentage of sales is returned in prizes. MM, PB, and most jackpot games pay out 50% of sales in prizes. Some scratch games pay out 60%.
If you want to start figuring a bunch of "what if's" or factoring in small prizes and the low chance of winning a really big prize, only you can decide what makes sense. Personally, figuring that the chances of winning a jackpot are extremely small, I consider the real pay out for most jackpot games to be closer to 20% than to 50%. OTOH, while winning 50, 100, or 250 thousand would be very nice, that's not going to let you retire and spend the rest of your life on easy street unless you're already at least 90% complete with a solid retirement plan.
As for being comfortable with 70k per year, how long do you plan on living? At a modest inflation rate of 2% today's 70k will be a little under 43k in 25 years. Dying the day after I take my last dollar out of the bank might happen, but my plan is to not die before running out of money. Since I don't plan on dying for at least 40 or 50 years my income has to be much more than my current needs before I retire.
"As for being comfortable with 70k per year, how long do you plan on living? At a modest inflation rate of 2% today's 70k will be a little under 43k in 25 years. Dying the day after I take my last dollar out of the bank might happen, but my plan is to not die before running out of money. Since I don't plan on dying for at least 40 or 50 years my income has to be much more than my current needs before I retire."
I took all that into consideration when I said $70k is cool. My living expenses (including $320 per month for JP games) are less than $24k per year (until I move in next to Tiger Woods) so even if inflation triples the price on everything I will still be just fine doing what I'm doing.