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You read it in the news: “Meat Packers Win Millions”. And then you get asked if you want to go in on lottery tickets at your place of work. What pops into your mind?

For me, it’s a combination of things. I hate those kind of requests. I wish people wouldn’t even make them, although I know that they’re just trying to have fun. (Along with improving their odds of winning something.)

I almost never play the lottery, because I know the odds of winning are ridiculously small, and I think it’s a waste of money. I’d have a better chance of being successful if I put money on red in roulette. Heck I’d probably have a better chance of getting a total stranger to give me $1000 just by asking. When I do play the lottery, it’s just for fun. Even then I usually regret doing so, because it’s a pain to remember to look up the numbers or stop into a store to see if I won.

So usually the first thing that pops into my mind is something like “no thanks”. But then it hits me: How would I feel if the group actually won? I would totally be kicking myself. Millions of dollars, so close, and I’d have to watch it go to people I worked with instead of me? Not that they wouldn’t enjoy it, but ugh. What if, what if, what if. Then I start to think, hm, well, I do have this $10 sitting here for my son’s lunch money. I could always just go to the bank and get that again later. Then I feel stupid for thinking of temporarily spending my son’s lunch money on lottery tickets.

So what would I really be buying? Not so much a chance to win. I’d really be buying insurance against a fear of regret. For $10 bucks, I’ll probably go with the insurance, even though I know that fear-based decisions are almost always wrong.

What about you? Do you play the lottery at all? If so, is it for fun, or for some other reason?

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