Friday, December 2, 2011

Bev's luck as an (almost) PowerBall winner.

Sitting at home day after day with an injured back is BORING.  I decided to clean out my purse.  I found some Powerball and Mega Million lottery tickets that were folded up in the bottom of my purse.  The Powerball ticket was from the November 19, 2011 game.  So I went on line and checked the winning numbers.
11/19/2011            9  16  17  28  30    11     x 3   

1st winning number, 9
I HAD 9

2nd winning number, 16
I HAD16

3rd winning number, 17
I didn't have 17.  
This is usually where it ends for me, 
with 2 matching numbers.

4th winning number, 28
I HAD 28!

At this point I realized I had 3 winning numbers.  I NEVER win anything at Lottery, MegaMillions or Powerball so I didn't know if it would be $5.00 or $50.00, but I was already excited, thinking I had won something for sure.
5th winning number, 30
I HAD 30!!!

Now I was like, OH MY GOD!!!  I have matched 4 out of 5 FREAKIN POWERBALL WHITE BALL NUMBERS THEY DRAW.  I thought I had possibly won THOUSANDS by this point.  Then they picked out the last ball.  A damn red Powerball:

Red ball/Powerball winning number, 11
I had 20

I figured, who cares about the stupid red ball, I matched 4 out of 5 white balls, the main balls, right?  Surely I'm a big winner.

I looked at the prize amounts.  I saw Match 4 out of 5 + the red powerball = $10,000 prize.  

I was freaking out.  I figured maybe they shaved a few grand away for me not having the red ball number, but I still thought I was a winner of thousands of dollars.  I was already thinking that JEN CAN GO TO COLLEGE, the rest would have to go to bills & a few Christmas presents.  Until I read the next line....

Match 4 out of 5 white balls WITHOUT matching red powerball  = $100 prize.  

A HUNDRED DOLLARS?  THAT'S IT?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  A $9,900 DIFFERENCE?  THAT'S A BIG FREAKIN DIFFERENCE FOR ONE LOUSY BALL, don't you agree?  

I MATCHED 4 NUMBERS.  Do you know how hard that is?  I've never done it in 20 years of playing stupid Lottery big games. I think a drop from $10K to a hundred bucks because of one little red ball is ridiculous.

But I guess that red Powerball is pretty damn important in the Powerball game, who could of guessed?  Not Lucy over here.  I already had the money spent in my mind.  Ha ha.  And I guess that power play x3 thing would have made me a $300 winner, guess that's pretty important too, I never pay extra for that, damn it.

Now that I think about it, I've never won more than 3-4 dollars on a Lottery big game ever.

Now that I think about it, I can't believe I've continued to put money into games like Lottery, Powerball or MegaMillions for 20 years with no pay back.

And then today, I FINALLY match 4 out of 6 numbers and only win $100 bucks?  What a racket!!!  I guess just the mere idea of a chance at winning millions of dollars made me give it a shot, time and time again.  But I have to forget about all of that and try to see the good.

It was pretty exciting today, seeing the big game numbers matching my numbers for once in my life,  just not enough of them, just my luck. 

And it taught me a lesson.  I promise to stop playing the big games.  I'll spend $20 a month on instant tickets or even at the casino and have a much better chance of winning.  I won't ever win millions, but I bet my odds of winning $100 bucks are better.  

My glass is 1/2 full.
It's still good news. 
I WON $100 BUCKS!