How to Win the Lottery

David Osteen
via Pleonast

True story for anyone's gambling lesson:

There is a man at the Texas City church of Christ named Marlin Ridenour. He works for the City of Galveston and oversees the water department.

The year the Texas State Lottery commenced in 1991, one of the employees wrote on a whiteboard a little table tracking lottery winnings of employees. Any employee could put their name on the board and track to see who won the most money. Six people signed up and tracked how many tickets they bought. When they won, they added money. When they lost, they subtracted the costs of the ticket.

Marlin put his name up there too. He bought 0 tickets made $0 dollars and lost $0. After about 10 months of tracking ... HE WON!!! With $0.

Finally a guy who was in the negative by about $400 erased the whole board in disgust.

You would think it would have taught everyone a lesson, but it didn't. They still play and he still doesn't. He probably has a net worth more than the other five employees combined.

Lottery = Tax for foolish people