I used to play the Florida Lotto big jackpot, like others here, maybe once or twice a year if I thought about it while at the gas station. It seemed harmless to spend a few dollars a year for this.
However, this year being possibly my final stretch towards FIRE and all and knowing I just need that little bit to get me over, I somehow came across the idea to check out the other Florida lottery games.
I saw that their Fantasy 5 game has much better odds: 1:375,000 for Fantasy 5 jackpot versus 1:22,000,000 for the regular Lotto jackpot. The winning prize for the Fantasy 5 is about $250,000 usually versus the Lotto at millions.
So then I put my analytical hat on and realized that, even though remote still, the odds for winning the Fantasy 5 were much greater than the Lotto...and, I sure know what I'd do with $250,000 versus not knowing how to handle a $13 million prize. $250,000 is totally manageable and I wouldn't even have to tell anyone I won it.
So I have been trying a little experiment the past few months by buying a ticket maybe every other day. I can easily walk across the street from work to buy one during a break.
They also have this EZmatch option where you pay an additional $1 per ticket and you have a chance to instantly win from $2-$500. The odds for winning this are more like 1:4. Actually pretty good odds. This past month I decided to buy all of them as Fantasy 5 + EZmatch to see what the results were. Well, I ended up evening out for the month. I paid $33 in tickets and won $34 in a combination of EZmatch wins (some $2 wins and one $10 win), in addition to a free ticket for getting 2 numbers every few purchases. The 1:4 odds are pretty spot on.
So I came out $1 ahead for the month, while getting about 15-20 chances to win $250,000. The most I've won in one ticket purchase so far is $10 for getting 3 numbers matched.
Kind of harmless so far...so the experiment continues.
I won't go back to playing the huge Lotto pools. The odds are too low. And in the 1:22,000,000 chance that I'd win, I'd have no idea how to handle $13 million.