Local Man Loses Mega Millions Jackpot, Grocery Money

March 8, 2007, 11:00 am; posted by
Filed under Articles, Humor, Steve  | No Comments

-TUXEDO, NY

Officials from the New York State Lottery Board confirmed Thursday that local mechanic Frank G. Horner, who risked $200 in family grocery money on Mega Millions tickets last weekend, was indeed the record 340,588,745th loser of this week’s $390 million drawing. As a loser, Horner is immediately entitled to his share of a losers’ jackpot of $0.00, payable in one lump sum or over a period of twenty years.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said Horner’s wife, Ann, scraping the last of the family’s peanut butter onto a flour tortilla for her three young children to split for dinner. “I’m still pretty numb, you know. From the shock, and also the cold, I guess.

“Frank spent the money for the power bill too.”

The Horner family is hardly alone in their fortune — with tickets that sold at a rate of over one million/hour the frenzied night before the drawing, New York is a national leader in lottery losers. Sales estimates range upward of forty million losing tickets, so it’s likely tens of thousands of Empire State waitresses, secretaries, and snowplow operators are contemplating just how to spend that unexpected $0.00 windfall, as they rummage through their couch cushions for gas money.

And the reasons are simple. Most everyone knows the odds of losing the Mega Millions jackpot are a comforting 176,000,000:175,999,999. But even when 352 million tickets are sold, all but a paltry 592 will fall short of winning $10,000 or more. Even when you include $150 winners, losers still carry the day safely, at a rate of approximately 27,077:27,076.

“You are literally more likely to lose this jackpot than you are to die — and I mean die of anything, ever, in your entire life,” said RIT statistics professor, Dr. Bruce Gongaware. “Of course these people are betting money they don’t have to spend; it’s an obvious win-win-lose-lose-lose-lose-lose situation!”

Whatever you call it, it’s easy to see why people like Frank G. Horner have turned to the multi-state lottery for all their sure-bet loss needs. But like so many losers before him, Frank says he won’t let the results change him.

“With the jackpot down to only a few million, you won’t catch me risking my family’s cash in the lottery this week. No, I’ll take care of that money the old-fashioned way.

“I’ll drink it.”


Comments

Leave a comment!