The Lotto Dudes Hit the Jackpot... Of Absolutely Nothing 😂🎰
Well...
Nobody won the $663 million Powerball jackpot.
Which means the jackpot has now climbed to $707 million for the next drawing.
That's the good news.
The bad news?
Neither did the Lotto Dudes.
Our fraternity pool bought 50 Powerball tickets with a $100 buy-in.
The result?
🥁🥁🥁
$0.00
Not a dollar.
Not a free ticket.
Not enough to buy a stale stick of gum.
Nothing.
Our return on investment was surprisingly easy to calculate.
-$100.
Or...
-100% ROI.
I believe that's what financial experts call "less than ideal."
The amazing part?
I'm already organizing the next pool.
I've sent the message to the guys:
$10 buy-in.
Same process.
Same optimism.
Same statistically questionable decision-making.
Why?
Because someone has to win.
We just proved it with the Mega Millions jackpot. Somebody walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars.
No rule says it can't be a bunch of fraternity guys arguing over who forgot to Zelle their ten bucks.
I've also decided to hedge my bets.
In addition to the fraternity pool, I'm buying my own ticket.
That's right.
I'm diversifying my lottery portfolio.
Some people hedge with stocks.
Some hedge with bonds.
I hedge with... more lottery tickets.
Financial advisors everywhere are reading this and quietly removing my phone number from their contacts.
Will this strategy work?
Probably not.
Will it make checking the numbers more exciting?
Absolutely.
If nothing else, I'll have plenty of material for the next blog post explaining how I expertly turned another hundred dollars into a life lesson.
Until then...
Good luck to everyone playing.
Maybe the $707 million Powerball jackpot will finally belong to one of the Lotto Dudes.
A guy can dream.
Join the adventure on NielFlamm.com/blog.
The Lotto Dudes Return: A Masterclass in Financial Mismanagement 😂💸
The Lotto Dudes are back.
Mostly because apparently none of us learned our lesson.
Let's review our recent investment history.
Round 1
The pool had a $200 buy-in covering both Mega Millions and Powerball.
We won...
🥁🥁🥁
$40.
That works out to about $4 per guy.
That's an 80% loss on our investment.
Most people would have taken the $4, bought a cup of coffee, and reflected on their life choices.
Not us.
We're visionaries.
Round 2
We rolled the entire $40 into Powerball.
The results?
We won...
$12.
Which means we somehow managed to lose another $28, a 70% loss on the rollover.
If you look at the whole adventure...
We turned $200 into $12.
That's a grand total return of...
-94%.
If this were a mutual fund, the SEC would politely ask us to stop.
If it were a hedge fund, CNBC would interview us just to ask, "How?"
If it were cryptocurrency, someone would still call it "a buying opportunity."
The best part?
Nobody has won the jackpots yet.
So naturally...
WE'RE DOING IT AGAIN.
Current jackpots:
💰 Mega Millions (Tuesday): $800 million
💰 Powerball (Monday): $663 million
Because clearly the definition of insanity is buying lottery tickets and expecting... well... actually, somebody has to win eventually.
The buy-in is $20.
Now here's where it gets funny.
Every lottery pool has them.
The guys who suddenly become lottery experts.
"You should buy more Quick Picks."
"No, all birthdays."
"Only odd numbers."
"Only even numbers."
"Buy them at this store."
"Don't buy them at that store."
"Get the ticket at 9:17 p.m. because Mercury is in retrograde."
Meanwhile...
When it's time to collect the money...
🦗🦗🦗
When it's time to drive to the store...
🦗🦗🦗
When it's time to organize the tickets...
🦗🦗🦗
Everyone wants to be CEO.
Nobody wants to be Operations.
Well...
I've put my only foot down.
If I'm running the pool, I'm running the pool.
You can absolutely offer suggestions...
...right after you volunteer to collect everyone's money, chase down the guys who forgot to pay, buy the tickets, scan the winners, keep the records, and explain to twelve grown men why their share of the winnings is approximately enough to buy a value-menu cheeseburger.
Until then...
Sit back.
Relax.
Trust the process.
It's only failed spectacularly every single drawing.
Good luck to all the Lotto Dudes!
One of these days we're going to hit it big...
...or we'll be writing another blog post about turning $200 into enough money to split a family-size bag of chips.
Our Lottery Pool Has Outperformed... Absolutely Nothing 😂💸
For the last few drawings, I've been leading my Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity chapter's lottery pool.
Based on my highly scientific calculations, we've probably donated somewhere around $600 to the South Carolina Lottery between Powerball and Mega Millions.
You're welcome, South Carolina.
This weekend, we're running it back.
I've asked everyone who wants in to Zelle me $20. Why Zelle? Because Venmo, PayPal, and some of the other apps want a cut when you withdraw money.
Sorry... around here we believe in wasting our money on lottery tickets, not transaction fees.
For each person, I buy:
🎟️ 5 Powerball tickets
🎟️ 2 Mega Millions tickets
A diversified portfolio, if you will.
Now, about the last Powerball drawing...
Guess who didn't win?
Us.
Well... that's not entirely true.
We actually won $12!
Since there were about a dozen of us, I graciously offered to Zelle everyone $1.
That's right.
Invest $20.
Receive $1.
A 95% loss.
Wall Street should be calling any minute now to ask me to manage a hedge fund.
I've already started thinking of names:
Niel Capital Mismanagement
Diamond Hands, Empty Wallets
The Negative Returns Investment Group
Bros Before ROI
The Institute for Advanced Financial Regret
The beautiful thing about a lottery pool is that no matter how badly you lose, you get to laugh about it with friends.
And every drawing starts the same conversation:
"This is the one."
Statistically?
Probably not.
But hope has a funny way of costing exactly twenty bucks.
Good luck to everyone playing this weekend. If one of us actually wins, I promise not to become one of those people who says, "Money doesn't change you."
I'll be too busy deciding whether my beach house should have a lazy river.