McGelligot on the Spot

I bought a lottery ticket as one of my wife’s Mother’s Day presents last week. It was a powerball thing that was set to be drawn on Tuesday. The ticket cost one dollar.

I was determined to get my money’s worth out of this lottery ticket. I figure the value of a lottery ticket is not in the possibility of winning a fortune, but rather in the dreams you come up with in thinking about what you would do if you did win the lottery.

It doesn’t really matter how remote the possibility, millions to one I am certain, you still spend time talking and thinking about what you would do if you were to win. This is especially true for those of us who only buy a lottery ticket two or three times per year. This last time I had trouble buying the ticket because there are several, and I couldn’t seem to get the wording right to get the one I wanted. I ended up with the Power Ball, and I really wanted the Michigan Lottery, but it really did not matter which I purchased because the end result would be the same.

Now, possessing this ticket, I actually showed it to my wife a day early. I figured that way I was getting an extra day and a night of daydreams out of it for her, potentially increasing the true value of the lottery ticket by 33% over what I considered its base value. I then put it in my desk drawer. The next day we talked about it, and kidded about who would get the money. I bought the ticket, and it was locked in my desk drawer, but I had said that it was her present. (I had to disillusion her, by reminding her that possession is 9/10ths of the law.)

As the drawing time on Tuesday approached, we continued to joke with each other about the ticket. I had already decided how I would lay out several of the 163 millions. Gifts to family members, civic projects, investments in stocks and bonds, a castle in Ireland. The time for the drawing swiftly came upon us. Did I look forward to the drawing with eagerness and hope? No, certainly not. I decided at this point that the lottery ticket was likely to lose all its value as soon as I looked at the results on Tuesday. I was not looking forward to losing all my castles in the air (including the one in Ireland).

So, I figured by not looking at the results of the drawing, I could extend the value of the ticket by several days. I had already gotten an extra 33% by showing it to my wife a day early.  But how much longer could I wait? Obviously there is a diminishing return on a lottery ticket that you never get the results on. You must have a belief that someday you will see the results and collect your money in order for the dream to have any real effect. So, I had to set a date on which I would look. I abitrarilly picked Thursday. This I figured would give me an additional 66% of value out of the lottery ticket. All told then, I would have effectively doubled the value of the ticket over the time of its life.

This is how to maximize the value of a lottery ticket. Where else can you get double your money’s worth in six days? Wish me luck, I could still be a winner!