Lottery Lines

I once heard it called the Idiot Tax. Appropriate.

 

1,000 Hills:

I'm like you when it comes to fueling up my car. I pay at the pump, and I'm on my way. OTOH, there have been times when I have to go inside...usually it's because the pump won't print out my receipt (out of paper or some other problem). Those times when I have to go to the counter, I see the same thing that you do--some IDIOT scraping off his lottery card only to find out (surprise, surprise) that HE LOST AGAIN! And, like you, he subsequently forks over MORE MONEY to purchase MORE LOTTERY TICKETS.

Like you, I'm tended to tell him (or her, usually with one or two children by her [or his] side observing how their parent spends the family's income), how STUPID CAN YOU GET?

Like the old adage goes, "Insanity is doing the same thing again and again, and each time expecting different (and better) results than before."

I feel like telling this adult that, but I don't--mainly because it's their money....If they want to waste it, well, let them waste it. The ones for which I feel sorry are those children at their side who eventually may have to go without food or clothing or medicine, etc., because Daddy spent all the family's income on lottery tickets.

Another thing. Is it just a coincidence that you seldom (if ever) never find places in the more well-to-do parts of town that sell lottery tickets? No, you seldom do. And why is that so? One reason perhaps is that most of these more well-to-do people got that way because they aren't that foolish to waste their money on a losing proposition such as lottery tickets.

I don't see anywhere in the Bible where God's Word encourages His children to purchase anything remotely similar to lottery tickets. OTOH, I read warning after warning, especially in Proverbs, about what God calls a FOOL who throws away his money on some "get-rich-quickly" scheme such as lottery tickets.

And, to make matters worse, the TV media will invariably telecast any time some person will make some kind of "winning" at the lottery. Why do they not air the many times a person LOSES at the lottery? Why don't they weekly show the tragic results of families who've lost what little income they have because they foolishly lost it at the lottery counter? Why don't they weekly air programs featuring families broken up, and sometimes driven to commit robberies just to feed their lottery addiction?

No, they seldom will show things like that, and I'm inclined to believe that the reason they don't is because they just might lose some sponsors if they do. Yep, they're just as greedy as the places that will gladly take your money when you buy lottery tickets.

Then people wonder why these people who, on a weekly basis, buy lottery tickets instead of real necessities like food, clothing, etc., for themselves and their families never seem to get out of their poor financial status. Well, DUH....!

I'm no millionaire by a long stretch, and I doubt whether most of us on BB are. But you won't catch me buying even one lottery ticket. Hopefully none of you out there in BB land don't buy them either.

 

Most lottery winners were losers the first couple of thousand times they played.

 

I once saw a woman put down five dollars and play five one dollar tickets. She won $20. She then spent the entire $20 on more one dollar tickets. She didn't win anything. I heard her tell the cashier, "At least I won $20".



It amazed me that she couldn't see that she didn't win $20, she lost $5.

 

The first time I played a poker machine I won $800. I probably sunk $8000 into it over the next ten years trying to do it again. :laugh: Hit $200 a few times, but never the jackpot.

But I've quit the machines, now. I buy a lottery ticket once in a while, like once a year.

 

Hopefully you'll win the $50+ million power ball, and then turn right around and donate ALLyour winnings to your church and/or some other worthwhile ministry(-ies) that minister to the people who've lost all of their life's earnings playing the lottery....just so YOU could win it instead of them!! :thumbsup:

In fact, since everybody knows that YOU (and YOU alone) will be the guaranteed winner [At least that's what the lottery people want you to think.], why not just turn all of your GUARANTEED WINNINGS right now, and then hold your breath until that big fat check comes to your mailbox?

After all, the lottery people already know YOU and YOU ONLY will be their GUARANTEED WINNER.....right??!!?? :laugh: :wavey:

 

Maybe it is "pathetic". The bigger issue is they have no other hope to put their trust in. "pathetic" or not they need to put their trust in Christ. Rather than saying something "smart" maybe someone needs to share the gospel with them in love rather than a "smart" comment in judgment.

 

:laugh: Yep...