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| Canada's Biggest Lottery |
My first real introduction to lotteries was in the Babysitters' Club (BSC)
Super Special #5 California Girls! which I read as a kid. The babysitters win the lottery in the amount of $10,000 (I think... I don't have the book in front of me to check (it's in my house in Toronto but I do own a copy :) ) and decide to go on a trip with Dawn, my favourite babysitter who is originally from California, to California. I don't remember much more about the book - winning the lottery was only the premise for them going on the trip and wasn't a part of the rest of the book - but when I was thinking about this blog post one of the first things that popped into my head was when the BSC won the lottery.
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I go through phases with lottery buying. M.'s partner N. says that he only buys lottery tickets when he's really happy or really sad. His rationale is that when he's happy, it's a good time to play because he's in a good mood, feels optimistic and maybe he'll actually win. When he's really down, playing seems like a good idea because maybe he'll win and then feel way better and if he loses, well everything else is going badly so why would he win the lottery? The reasons I purchase lotto tickets changes. I know my dad occasionally buys a ticket, especially when there's a big jackpot, so that's how I originally got in to buying them too. I also started buying tickets more regularly once I met D. as he liked to buy them. For a while there in the winter of 2012 I think we were buying Lotto Max tickets almost every week just because the jackpot was so high. After weeks of losing - or occasionally winning a free ticket but nothing more, no jackpot for us - we stopped playing. This past fall, however, our lottery buying came back with a vengeance. It was sparked by Lotto Max having a huge jackpot that started at about $40 million and just kept growing until it was $50 million. Unfortunately, again, aside from two free tickets, we haven't won the jackpot.
Lotto Max and Lotto 649 are the two big lotteries in Canada. Lotto Max's draw is every Friday night and 649's draws are Wednesday and Saturday nights. I always go for the quick pick and just let the machine choose my numbers. D. usually does too but one time he picked his numbers and used a combination of our birthdays, and my niece E.'s birthdays. Sadly we didn't win with that either, so now he's back to letting the machine give us numbers. Until a few weeks ago, my lottery buying was limited to Lotto Max and occasionally Lotto 649. Then a client I saw at work told me he had won $75,000 (the top prize) on a $3 Lucky Horseshoe scratch ticket. A few days later, I found myself buying a scratch ticket for the first time. I figured since there was a relatively recent winner of the top prize in Lucky Horseshoe I should try something else and so I picked Cash for Life. You can buy Cash for Life scratch tickets for $1, $2, $4 and $10. The best prize out of these tickets is, respectively, either $100, $200 $400, or $1000 a week for life. I am embarrassed to say that over the past two weeks I've probably bought about 6 tickets - a few $2 ones, a few $1, a few $4 ones and D. bought me one $10 ticket on my birthday. For all that scratching, all I've won is $3. I got $1 from a one dollar ticket and $2 on a two dollar ticket. D. says I look like I'm having so much fun when I scratch tickets and I do enjoy it but I am annoyed I haven't won more. These tickets always make you think you're so close to winning - you have to get three of the same thing in a game to win it; I've gotten two LIFE symbols so many times but the elusive third one is probably only on 1 in a million tickets or some other really bad odds - and then you lose. Twice I've thought I won $1000 (which I'd gladly take) only to realize that I momentarily mistook $100 for $1000 and I didn't win. I was worried buying lotto tickets has gotten out of hand so I've told myself I can now only buy tickets once a month. Writing this paragraph has made me want to go out and buy a scratch ticket so badly but I am going to resist :)
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| So addictive!! |
I've long fantasized about what I would do if I won the lottery, even at times when I wasn't buying lotto tickets. Back in August 2009 when I had just come back from a trip to South Africa, I decided that if I won the lottery I would take all my friends and family to the exact same amazing lodge in South Africa I had just been to for a safari. I'd rent out the whole lodge so that everyone staying there would be my favourite people in the world. We would go out on the jeeps in the morning and the evening to see the animals, eat long leisurely meals at night, and the rest of the time just relax. I even went so far as to make a list of who I would bring :)
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We'd go out and look at the animals
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And stay here!
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While I would still consider doing this if the jackpot were big enough, now I am much more practical (and perhaps boring or realistic) about what I'd do if I won. I honestly can't even fathom what I'd do with a jackpot like $50 million. (I read an article recently about a lawyer in Saskatchewan who won $14 million in the lottery. He said he's going to keep working and just carry on with his life. I'd definitely keep working too but it'd be so amazing to know you would never need to worry about money ever again.) I'd be thrilled to win $10,000. I've thought more about what I would do with that amount of money just because it seems more reasonable and is easier to manage. D. thinks people in small towns have a better chance of winning Lotto Max - he bases this on that Lotto Max winners are often from small towns or suburbs as opposed to being from Toronto, Montreal, etc. - so he wants us to keep buying our tickets where we live now and in other small towns in Ontario. All I can do is keep hoping that one month we will win.
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| D. and I would kiss like this for the camera if we won... not :) |
