So the pay day has finally come. I can finally cash out and say what I’ve always wanted to say to colleagues, family, and friends — because I’m stinking rich. It is strange that lucky events often happens to me on April First of every year – but who am I to deny destiny?

What to do first? Perhaps buy myself another private jet? Or another 3 series from BMW? But why stop at the poor man’s M3?

With odds of 1 in 175,711,536 for the Mega Millions, many of us would expect that many Americans would know better to avoid sinking money into lottery tickets — but unfortunately according to a survey from the Consumer Federation of America, 21% of Americans still believe lottery to be a practical means of wealth accumulation.

You can argue that when the jackpot reaches a certain astronomical value, the positive expected value would warrant a lottery ticket purchase. And we can throw other factors such as after-tax results, taking the lump sum, more than one person winning into the equation, and have some math debate about probability theory — but in general, it is still safe to say that most lottery tickets are a crappy bet.

Anyhow, who cares? I’m stinking rich.

Sure, it’s a bit strange that I’ve won a lottery that I haven’t entered myself into, but hey, a “National Lottery” from the city of Istanbul can’t be wrong!

Related Post & Articles: