Last night I chose to buy a couple of lottery tickets at a local convenience store. I handed the clerk a filled out form with the numbers I wanted to play and asked for one ticket for Wednesday and one ticket for Saturday's drawing. He then came back and handed me 2 tickets with the same numbers for Wednesdays drawing. I asked him to correct this and he looked puzzled and said, "You've got twice as many chances to win double the money." That may be correct if there were multiple matches on the same numbers (I'm not sure about the rules in that case) but I told him that is not what I asked for and wanted it the way I requested. He did correct it after a bit of grumbling. Is this an indication of our present education system or just plain not giving a crap? In our area the stores do not pay too badly and many of the employees seem to stay at the stores for more than short term so I am tending to blame this on lack of common sense rather than education but might be mistaken.

One of my coworkers plays the lottery pretty regularly. Nothing crazy. Just the same numbers once a week. Mind you this is not powerball or mega millions but some other game.

Anyway, a couple of years ago he forgot that his wife had already bought the tickets so he went and got them himself. Their numbers won. Lucky for him they had two tickets with the same numbers and got double the payout. $100,000 each I believe. Not bad.

Anyway, so I suppose the clerk was at least right in that regard.

quote:

Originally posted by bettysnephew:...Is this an indication of our present education system or just plain not giving a crap? ...

It's both.

And I am really weary of it.

I would of taken the tickets. The voices heckle sometimes but only a fool ignores them.

Although you would split any top prize with yourself, anything less than the top prize would result in a double payout. The clerk wasn't necessarily demonstrating low intelligence other than his mistake in filling the initial request.

quote:

Originally posted by TXJIM:
The clerk wasn't necessarily demonstrating low intelligence other than his mistake in filling the initial request.

That seems likely to me. He screwed up, and maybe it's a real pain to execute a refund for a lottery ticket. Maybe the store, or even the employee has to eat the cost, as the state simply may not allow refunds.

So, this clerk, would he rather buy 100 tix of the same number or 100 tix with different numbers?

Actually this should be still one chance to win double the money: "You've got twice as many chances to win double the money."

That kind of error is just the product of native stupidity. Those people have always been with us, I am afraid.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
So, this clerk, would he rather buy 100 tix of the same number or 100 tix with different numbers?

Actually this should be still one chance to win double the money: "You've got twice as many chances to win double the money."

Splitting hairs really. You are trying to rationalize the odds of winning the lotto. The clerk screwed up and rather than process a return for a $1 ticket he made a case for the OP to just keep the extra ticket. His logic was not horrible with regard to the outcome if the OP were to actually match a few numbers and win a prize less than the grand prize. In fact, if that ticket were to remain in circulation, not be cancelled somehow, the OP would be guaranteed to lose half of the grand prize should all of his hand picked numbers match up. So, for $1, the OP should have probably just kept the 2nd ticket unless he was confident that the ticket was cancelled.

Yea, being very specific and as articulate as possible to the dreadlocked dufus at the counter, I once requested one number for five drawings. I often do this to avoid having to stop and buy a ticket so often. But what I got was five different numbers for one drawing Yea, maybe her manager shouldn't allow employees to be on their phone while waiting on customers...
Multitasking fail LOL!. I just kept the ticket and started stopping somewhere else.

Maybe once the tickets are printed they can't be canceled and the issuer may have to eat them. I base this solely on the local mart leaving mistake tickets laying on the counter by the register and them trying to sell them to other customers... I have asked and paid for a ticket before, and had them just pick one up off the counter and give me.