Finally kicked my lottery ticket habit

I have never won any more than $50 at one time .

I would play the same set of numbers online through Oz lotteries every night, 5 days per week.

I had my debit card ( don't have credit card) set up on there so I could continuously select it and select my previous games played and would receive the results everynight.

Oz Lotteries promote "safe gambling" but don't stop sending emails, everyday you get a new mega draw coming up that would constantly remind you to play again and keep you dreaming of Ferraris and 30 room mansions


Which reminded me to buy the next game and repeat it night after night, week after week, month after mon.... For 7 years!

I use to only play a few lines so it works out to about $30 per week.

$30 x 52 weeks = $1560 x 7 years


$10920!!

What a waste of money! Would much rather have that 11k in my bank offsetting my loan or going towards a holiday

I dont think I had a gambling problem as I had it controlled to only $30 a week but I had some of the symptoms a gambling person must have like being angry when I forgot to put the games on ,stressed out when checking numbers, and even racing down to the shop to buy them when online cut off was earlier than buying in store.

I can see now how people can be addicted to playing pokies and betting on horses and ruin their lives gambling.

I have heard of FIFO workers on 12 hour days working horrid conditions on huge salarys to come back and blow it all in a matter of hours and then go back and do it again ..

Luckily I only lost a puny $11,000

Finally have Unsubscribed from the emails and am free from it

But what do I do now for fun?

 

Lotto is a tax on those who are bad at maths.

 

i think be able to admit how much you lose is good and is the only way you will stop kidding yourself

 

I used to work with a guy, who would head down to the horse races every sat/sun.

He was convinced he was making a 'second' income. He was quite good at it (apparently) and monday morning were filled with his winning story. I doubted most of it, and figured that the momory of the wins was simply stronger than the memory of the losses.

Being a numbers guy I challenged him to record all bets, wins and losses, for 12months. The 'bet' was $1,000 that he didnt make a 5% return on investment. He honestly believed that he was closer to 50%.

He obliged, and at the end of the year, he had made a grand total profit of about $100.
To be fair I was impressed that he was actually beyond break even.

Blacky

 

Good on you!

 

I play Lotto, Ozlotto and Powerball.

BUT I set up a group with 8 mates, we dumped $50 each on it at the start of the year.

I control the account and purchase tickets in any of the 3 that have a pay of 4.5M or higher (minimum $500K win each).

We are just over half way through our moneys 2.5 months in .

I don't think I will be renewing though when the cash runs out, out of all the draws we have won once and it was for $17ish.$1.89 return for a $50 investment seems silly

 

So was that closer to his 50% or your 5% number?

 

He did a good job to break even but you should have said "I'm not in the business of breaking even "

 

Good on you Johnny, it really is a waste of money. To excel at wealth creation you have to kick get rich schemes like lotto I reckon. I'm not into mindset mumbo jumbo but this is one thing I believe limits your horizons. Once you stop looking for short cuts you know you only have yourself to rely on.

 

The odds of winning the lottery are increased if you buy a ticket - but only slightly.

 

I purchased my pickets through the app on my iPhone and it debited the price on my credit card. It obviously charged a cash advance of $2.50 every single time. This went on every week for 2 months straight at which time I woke up and cut the 'habit'. I deleted the app and haven't touched it since.

Buying the tickets off the app was just pure laziness...

 

You know your numbers will come up now...

I once won $17k so I'd be fairly far ahead as I play sporadically. But I'm sure if I took all the gambling I have done in the past pokies and casino when I was young and stupid, horses Spring racing carnival, lotto sporadically I'd probably be behind. Still like the idea of striking it rich with a div 1 win but accept it's unlikely and a stupidity tax.

 

Rationally it's silly. So I always buy the cheapest ticket I can and I never kid myself about the fact that I am paying for the privilege to daydream about if I won. If I don't buy a ticket I can't dream how I'd like to spend it on my way to work.

Well worth the $2.50 for a bit of escapism every now and then.

 

Don't check your numbers tonight

 

rhymes.

 

I don't mind buying a $2 scratchie now and then - and if I win I'll play out (cash in for more scratchies) until it runs it's course ... bit of fun

Hubby is in a work pool for lotto - think it's $10/wk - wouldn't be too upset if they won the $22mil tonight

 

So if hubby wins does that mean the boss no longer has any employees?

 

I've never been a lotto/gambling guy. I think I lost $5 on the pokies the first and only time I played one and never went back.

The scary thing about your number of $10k losses, is that it doesn't include the compounded opportunity cost. If you want to reinforce your decision to stop playing, add in that amount you would have saved if it had been in an offset account. Now add 5/10/15 years, and the number really snowballs.

 

A friend of mine won the 22 million so it seems achievable/realistic to me now. I buy the odd ticket when the big draws come up though the year, less than $4 each time and usually just spend the shrapnel I find lying around work.

I prefer playing the raffle type draws where there are houses/gold/cars to win. Much better odds as there is limited tickets and no number combinations are involved. It's $10 every 5 weeks or so which I feel is acceptable.