Complaint Review: Georgia Lottery Corporation

You are evidently a very poor liar. First of all, you cannot seem to decide if you bought the tickets in Kentucky or Georgia. Having six consecutive losing tickets is nothing. I actually have purchased 7 consecutive losing tickets, but I soon won $100. Your theory about odds is what makes you sound so ridiculous. You wouldn't be complaining if you won 6 times in a row, now would you?

The picture is of $2 Kentucky lottery tickets, not $10 Georgia lottery tickets. I will also call your bluff on the fact that you said that you only won $120 back on a roll of tickets. All $300 packs of Georgia instant tickets are guaranteed to contain at least $180 worth of winners. Buying a whole book might not be the best bet that you could have made, but if you had a $500 winner in that pack it would have paid off.

Do you really think that the lottery is going to put one winner exactly every 4 tickets? Surely you could not be that stupid. If they were to do that, then all someone would have to do is watch someone buy 3 losing tickets, and then buy the fourth. You could do this all day long, and assuming that no one bought more than 3 tickets at a time, everyone would lose except you, who would have all of the winners yourself.

I will make it easy for you. I once inquired about the overall odds in a particular instant game, and here is the response which I received from the Georgia Lottery Commission:

"Thank you for contacting the Georgia Lottery Corporation (GLC).

The Georgia Lottery goes to great lengths to ensure the security and integrity
of every game. Game symbols and prize amounts are distributed randomly during
the printing process of instant tickets. All instant games are audited by an
independent CPA firm prior to the release of a game to confirm that the
appropriate number of prizes is included in the printing process of a game.

The overall odds printed on an instant ticket are the odds of winning any prize
in the entire game. For example, if the odds are 1:4 that means there is a
winning ticket in every four tickets printed in the entire game. Since winning
tickets are randomly distributed during the printing process, this does not mean
that every fourth ticket in a roll is a winning ticket. There are multiple top
prize winning tickets, as well as multiple prize levels, available in all
Georgia Lottery instant games. Tickets are randomly distributed to more than
8,000 retailers throughout the state.

We appreciate your interest in the GLC and our games"

Instead of responding to each individual poster about the lottery being a tax on the poor, or stupid, or un-educated or whatever, I challenge you to do your homework. If you do, your preconceived notions about lottery players will quickly be shattered.

Regarding thedemographic makeup of lottery players, it can be most easilybe statedas follows: The majority of Lottery players are white males who are over 35 years of age, and whose household incomes are over $50,000 per year. 85%have at least a high school diploma, and over 35% have at least one year of college.

How do you little whiney liberal cry-babies like that? Are you surprised?Some are, especially those who have never played, and would not take notice of their fellow players. It is not the "poor, uneducated minorities" who are the "victims" of the lottery.

I fully understand the risks that I am taking. I understand that the purchase of a lottery ticket is not a prudent economic decision. I know that on average, the lottery returns only approximately half of what is put into it. If you don't play, you might ask yourself why anyone would play who knows the odds are stacked against them.

It is simple, to win of course. It also very exhilarating to scratch off instant tickets, or to watch at least some of your ballsbeing drawn. It is best done in moderation. Too many decent winners too close together can quickly embolden someone. The absolute worst thing you can do wrong when playing is to get mad when you lose, and decide that by God, I am going to scratch these off until I win something.

I love to dream big, andI can't possibly win ifI don't play. Somebody has to win, and it might as well be me. I have just as good of odds of winning as anyone else. My wife thinks I have a gambling problem, but only when I am not winning. She loved all of those $100 plus winners I got in a short period of time.

To Someone Smarter than You, thank you so much your gracious majesty! I cannot believe you took time out of your very busy day to talk to such low lives as lottery players. As for Shawn, he most likely has not played very much, that is why he doesn't comprehend overall odds. I would hope that by now he does.

Oh great genius, will you bestow some of your great knowledge upon us, so that we too may be great like you? We would like to receive your mighty and powerful words, so that we can become wealthy and powerful like you! Can you possibly save us from this evil lottery before it destroys us?

I might actually be the idiot for responding to this.

The picture you posted is of a Kentucky state lotto ticket, not Georgia.  Also, you would be much better off if you took your $300.00 and invested it in something.

If Shawn thinks that holding 6 losing tickets on a game that has 3.4:1 odds is proof of anything, he is truly an idiot. Hey Shawn, do you know what "odds" are? Do you know that it's possible to flip a coin and have it come up heads four times in a row, even though the odds are 2:1? Get a life and quit throwing you're money away. Lotteries are for suckers (all of them. Not just Georgia).

""By the way all your lottery "losses" are tax deductable, but that means you have to save all your losing tickets, and that means doing proper book keeping""

It ALSO means you have to claim your WINNINGS.  If you were to be honest with your tax filing you would need to save ALL your lottery tickets/payout receipts and claim all WINNINGS as well as losses.

Shawn:

You are an idiot.  The Lottery is a tax on stupid people.  You spent 300.00 and won 120.00 back.... so what.  If every body bought tickets and every body won, then the State would not generate revenue. 

The purpose of the lottery was to raise funds for the state, usually to go into the general purpose fund, or to fund the public schools.

Why dont you just get a job, instead of trying to get ruch quick off of the state lottery?

By the way all your lottery "losses" are tax deductable, but that means you have to save all your losing tickets, and that means doing proper book keeping, but you are such a loser that I dont think you have the brain cells to do this.

Signed

Someone Smarter Than You