How Not To Win the Lottery
Originally published in 2009. Republished for educational (and totally useless) purposes.
Everyone dreams of winning the lottery. Fast riches, early retirement, a beachfront mansion with 37 rooms and zero responsibilities—what could go wrong?
Well… a lot.
If you’re serious about not winning the lottery, follow these tried-and-tested anti-strategies.
1.- Don’t buy a ticket
This is the gold standard of lottery failure. Yes, the odds of winning are microscopic. But every actual winner in history had one thing in common: they bought a ticket.
So if you spend time visualizing your future yacht, whispering affirmations to the universe, and lighting candles for your millionaire destiny—but didn’t actually buy a ticket? You’re doing it right (or terribly wrong).
2.- Buy a ticket… but don’t check the results.
Why ruin the suspense? Just tuck that ticket away in a drawer and forget it exists. Months later, read a story about an unclaimed jackpot and think: “Huh, I think I bought one that week.”
Too late. It’s already mulch
3.- Buy a ticket, win, then lose it.
You don’t want this to happen. Items 1 and 2, you can survive, but this one can actually kill you! It happened before.
If you do decide to play the lottery, you do check the results and you actually WIN…please, by all means, DO NOT LOSE THE TICKET!
4.- Buy a ticket with a friend, then give it to them to keep.
Buying a ticket with someone else or with a group of people is a pretty common thing to do. Now, if you win the big one…lets say 250 million dollars, are you sure that the person that has the ticket is going to remember that you paid for half?
5. Chose the winning numbers, but don’t play them…then check the results
Don’t pick the numbers unless you are going to play. And if you do, don’t check the results.
The last thing you want in your mind for the rest of your life is that you had the winning numbers, but you didn’t play them.
6.- Actually win… then have a heart attack.
If you did everything correctly…you bought the ticket (only for you), you checked results, you didn’t lose it and you actually won…try to stay calm and not die from the excitement!
Final Words of Anti-Wisdom
If your goal is to never win the lottery, this guide has you covered.
If your goal is to win the lottery… maybe just do the opposite of everything above.
But remember: even if you win, there’s still taxes, publicity, second cousins you never knew existed, and the sudden urge to buy a llama farm in Nevada.
So… maybe not winning is the real jackpot?
