$1 billion? I couldn’t even win $48.50

Have you all been following the Mega Millions draws that have been happening south of the border?

As this issue of the Tri-County Vanguard was going to press on Monday, Oct. 22, the jackpot sat at $1.6 billion for a draw happening on Tuesday.

And if that wasn’t enough temptation to buy a lottery ticket the Powerball jackpot was at $620 million.

Eventually somebody has to (or maybe by the time you read this, had to) win, although the odds were certainly not stacked in anyone’s favour. As of Monday the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot stood at one chance out of 302,575,350.

Your odds were slightly better at winning the Powerball jacket. There you had a one out of a 292,201,338 chance of winning.

I don’t buy lottery tickets so the odds of me ever winning a jackpot are slightly closer. They fall between none and none.

Years back when my youngest son played minor hockey, there was one year that I was on a roll when it came to our game 50/50 draws. My husband was quite lucky too. We kept winning and winning. Between the two of us, we have won three 50/50s during one tournament weekend alone.

But luck wasn’t always on my side.

I can remember this one particular game forever ago when me and a hockey mom named Denyse were selling 50/50 tickets. She and I grabbed the bucket and the strips of tickets and began selling an arms-length of tickets for $5 or three tickets for $2.

Neither one of us were what I’d call a mathematician. When we had finished selling the tickets it took us three attempts to divide the money into two equal amounts, which was one less attempt from when I sold a 50/50 with a hockey mom named Sonya a few weeks before.

There’s a saying: People who can’t do math become journalists. I don’t know what Sonya and Denyse’s excuse was.

Keep in mind this was also before the day of Smartphones when you could just punch in the amount and divide it in half on your calculator. It was the loose change that was our demise.

Denyse and I got someone to draw the winning ticket and then I announced the winning number to the parents and other fans who sat shivering in the ‘cold side’ at the Mariners Centre.

“0349! 0349!” I shouted. Everyone on the visiting team side of the rink shook their heads. Not a winner in the bunch.

So we went back to some people standing by the boards that we had sold tickets to.

“0349! 0349!”

Again, nothing.

So then we went to the side of the rink where our team’s parents were sitting.

“0349! 0349!” I shouted.

No one had the winning ticket. I was dumbfounded.

“Did you put tickets in the bucket that you didn’t sell?” someone asked. The tone in their voice suggested they weren’t trying to be helpful but were instead poking fun at our sales ability.

“Did somebody leave? Is someone in the bathroom?” I asked, trying yet again, “0349! 0349!” By now I was completely perplexed and feeling quite confident I’d never be asked to sell the 50/50 again for the team. (Not that this would have been a bad thing.)

After about five minutes I figured that maybe we did stick a rogue ticket in the bucket so we pulled out another ticket.

“0518!” I shouted. Within seconds we had a winner. I handed over the $48.50. (A far cry from $1.6 billion.)

As I watched the person put their winnings into their purse I thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Wait a minute. I had bought tickets.”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my arm length of tickets.

Yep, there it was, 0349.

I was officially a loser . more ways than one. . . in