You don't deserve 600,000,000 dollars.

[laundry_queen]

51. I realize how interesting this is

Here in Canada I filled out a survey commissioned by the provincial lotteries about whether or not I wanted to see super large jackpots like in the US, OR see more prizes of smaller amounts. I said more prizes of smaller amounts. Apparently I wasn't the only one who answered that way. Not too long after, a new lottery came out that has a cap of 50 million. Once the jackpot hits 50 million, it has 'bonus' prizes of 1 million each (it draws new numbers for each $1 million prize). The other major lotto in the country generally starts with prizes of 2 million but has built up to 54 million+ before. I think that was the biggest one ever won in Canada. It's fascinating to me how even our lotteries are structured differently on our values - Canadians are OK with sharing wealth and Americans are individualist to the extreme, and it even reflects in how we dish out lottery money. Interesting. I also think 600 million is excessive. I'd rather see multiple jackpots of several million at a time.

By the way - I'm not against people buying lotto tickets and dreaming a little. I know many people in our town who have won $100,000+. My parent's next door neighbor won (with his office in an office pool) one of the biggest jackpots in Canadian history. A kid that played hockey with my brother - his parents won 1 million dollars - twice. A guy my mom works with won hundreds of thousands. Another guy in my small town won 40 million. So, to me, it's not like it'll NEVER happen - it CAN happen. If you take each top draw individually, yes statistically you are not likely to win. However, if you take prizes of 100,000+, and playing many draws over a lifetime, your chances get better. For $1 or 2, for me, it's worth the chance that it may happen.