Urge to write another article on the lottery

Last night on the way home from the Hearthstone Open Full Moon ritual, I passed the billboard by Colfax and York that advertises the Powerball and Mega Millions. And promptly had the urge to go home and write another article about how bad an investment the lottery was.

The billboard had a picture of Ben Franklin looking shocked (or were they aiming for interested) at the amounts that the Powerball and Mega Millions are up to. They want to imply that Ben Franklin would buy a lottery ticket or three. He wouldn't--I am sure of that from reading his autobiography (which I have misplaced--the only reason that I am not writing the article). Franklin believed in hard work to become rich, not luck.

This is a belief that I have also picked up over the years. Today (as my regular followers know) every time I get the urge to buy a lottery ticket, I write a lottery article instead (better return for my time and money). Not that I had the urge to buy a ticket last night--no, it is simply that I had the urge to mock the billboard (hence this blog post).

If you are curious to read my articles talking about how the lottery is a bad investment, here are some links:

Save money by banning the lottery from your budget.

Do lottery tickets make good gifts?

Misleading lottery ads

I am an expert in what?!

It is said that if you plan on making your living as a writer that you need to specialize. Specialization makes your life easier, for you can more rapidly hack out articles.

I will admit that I am occasionally surprised at some of the specialities that I am developing. At the beginning of the fall semester, I wrote an article about Amendment 50 (Casinos) and the projected funding that the community colleges of Colorado could expect from this particular law change. I have also wrote articles on the Colorado Lottery.

And I just voluteered to do a follow-up to the Amendment 50 revenue article. My reasoning for voluteering is that I already have the websites bookmarked, therefore I just as well write the article.

So why does this speciality surprise me?

Well, I do not gamble. I am writing about Blackhawk, and have never stepped foot in a casino up there. Even if I did not have a travel issue (remember moving vehicles cause terrible migraines for me), I am not sure that I would go. After all, do I really want to find out if I am prone to a gambling addiction (something that I suspect my aunt had).

There is also the fact that if I am going to place my money at risk, I would rather place it in an investment instead. The stock market: that is real gambling.