Yes, I have a ticket and a dream. I only buy one ticket that's mine (outside the gang tickets at work). It's enough for the daydream and entertainment value but not so much I feel like I can be branded as one of masses "taxed on our stupidity". C'mon...$2 is a pretty cheap thrill and like the commercials say, "you never know". My dreams are pretty modest. I don't want a new home or even a new car. But a housekeeper would be nice; I sure hate cleaning. I'd probably have to put a fence around my property for security, but I'd actually hate doing that in my rural, open county. I'd like to get a little more landscaping done, like cleaning out the invasive plants on my land and planting new trees. And there are some friends and family I'd want to help out. After that, I'd be philanthropic. It would just feel 'immoral' to me to not give back when an obscene amount of money lands in your lap. Nobody needs that much.
I got looking into how the money gets used when the governments (state) get their slice. That's a bit discouraging. When our politicians brought lotteries in, they were going to enhance education, environmental protection and other social programs. Some states allow it to just go their general fund. When a lottery program is new, it does generally help these programs. But after a few years, lottery money starts replacing collected taxes..Governors take political credit for 'no tax increases' or 'tax cuts' while the money slides out to other needs. In short, government starts to depend on the lottery to keep the lights on, rather that making government more efficient. Think of it like United Way. Yes, you can designate that your $100 goes to the Flemington Food Bank -- but what happens is your $100 does indeed go there, but you haven't increased the Food Bank's take from $10,000 to $10,100 -- because $100 from the general donations moved elsewhere. In case you are curious, during Saturday's lottery, NJ sold about $50 million of tickets and $20 million of that comes back to the state.
The jackpot and the hype grow in unison now. It's just amazing that there was not a winning ticket this past time given how many tickets were sold. Surely on Wednesday..... but just a warning, if the blog stops abruptly on Thursday it might be because I won and I had to start locking down all sources of information about me. Good friends, I will be in touch with you from a burner phone. Not-so-good friends...well, it's been real.