When Scott Hoover bought a $5 scratch-off ticket in Virginia called "Beginner's Luck" last summer, he carefully studied the odds. Even though he figured his chances of winning were a long shot, he felt the odds were reasonable.
Hoover, a business professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, wasn't surprised when his tickets didn't bring him the $75,000 grand prize, but he was shocked to learn the top prize had been awarded before he bought the ticket.
"I felt duped into buying these things," Hoover said.
He discovered the Virginia State Lottery was continuing to sell tickets for games in which the top prizes were no longer available. Public records showed that someone had already won the top prize one month before Hoover played. He is now suing the state of Virginia for breach of contract.
The mind boggles. You really have to be an academic to not understand the concept of "scratch off" lottery games. All you have to do is think about it for 10 seconds to realize even before the top prize has been awarded you can buy tickets that have "no chance." For example, you may never visit the town the tickets is randomly shipped to, or you may never visit the particular store selling the top prize. Therefore, all of the tickets you buy have "no chance" to win the top prize.
Somebody with a PhD in Business needs this explained to them? Really? (There goes Washington & Lee off the list of schools I'd willing send my children.)
Of course I'd feel better if the story also contained a regular person style "voice of sanity" perspective. No such luck.
In New Jersey, tickets for the "$1,000,000 Explosion" scratch-off game were still on sale last week, even though the million-dollar grand prize was already awarded.
Lottery ticket buyers outside a New Jersey convenience store were stunned to hear the news.
"Oh really? I didn't know that," one shopper told CNN. Another added, "That's just not right."
I forget....how many generations of imbeciles was enough?
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