Thanks to one man, I don’t need to play the lottery. I already know that if I play twice a week every week for the next 10 years, I will win a staggering total of $93 by 2020. Or, put differently, I will make back eight percent of the $1,040 I’ll spend on the tickets.
I learned this from the time-wastingly fun yet cripplingly heartbreaking Mega Millions lottery simulator created by Friend of PopSci Rob Cockerham (whom you may remember from his Supertanker tour.) You can play your favorite numbers just once, for a year, or for 10 years and find out how little you win. And for the record, playing the Lost numbers does not yield better results.
Try it out for yourself; the lesson becomes pretty clear after a few simulated decades.
