{"id":42074,"date":"2016-01-07T12:39:33","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T16:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42074"},"modified":"2020-07-18T12:39:50","modified_gmt":"2020-07-18T16:39:50","slug":"close-but-no-cigar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42074","title":{"rendered":"Close, but no cigar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Given how much I\u2019d been musing about winning the lottery lately, it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that I went and got a few numbers for the-then $475 million dollar Powerball jackpot.\u00a0 Sure, with odds of like 1 in 300 million, it\u2019s tantamount to burning cash in hand, but at the same time, you\u2019ll never hit home runs if you never step up to the plate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, I found myself in a position to tune into WSB last night right before the 11 pm news, as foolhardy as putting my hopes and dreams into a lottery could be, hoping to see any numbers on any of the sets of numbers show up on little ping pong balls.<\/span><\/p>\n

The winning numbers for Wednesday\u2019s drawing were 2, 11, 47, 62 and 63 with the Powerball being 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The thing about watching a lottery drawing live is that once you get to the first number that doesn\u2019t match anything you have, it\u2019s over; at least when it comes to those dashed dreams of winning the jackpot.\u00a0 And when I saw the number \u201c2\u201d drawn, and I was unable to locate it anywhere on my ticket, the flicker of hope extinguishes as fast as it ignites at the start of the drawing segment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The best and worst thing about this particular drawing is what\u2019s seen right above – my actual ticket.\u00a0 I actually had a string of numbers that contained four of the five winning numbers but not the Powerball.\u00a0 Which meant that I was 4\/6 the way to the jackpot, and 4\/5 from \u201cthe consolation\u201d $1 million payout for matching the five numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, according to Powerball rules, I\u2019m still entitled to a $100 prize for scoring on a 1 in 37,000 chance, for getting four of the five winning numbers.\u00a0 That\u2019s a 5X return on my initial investment of $20, and frankly more than I\u2019ve ever won on any lottery before in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, it\u2019ll be nice to not walk away empty-handed, but man is there a slight disappointment in the fact that with 4\/6 and 4\/5 correct numbers, I was one or two balls away from some vastly superior winnings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever though, that\u2019s the lottery for you.\u00a0 Sure, there\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0definitive places, but really, it\u2019s kind of like Ricky Bobby\u2019s dad – if you\u2019re not first, you\u2019re last.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given how much I\u2019d been musing about winning the lottery lately, it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that I went and got a few numbers for the-then $475 million dollar Powerball jackpot.\u00a0 Sure, with odds of like 1 in 300 million, it\u2019s tantamount to burning cash in hand, but at the same time, you\u2019ll never hit … Continue reading Close, but no cigar<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79,45,15],"class_list":["post-42074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-cashmoney","tag-fail","tag-og"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42076,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42074\/revisions\/42076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}