Nope, I haven’t bought a ticket and I have no plans on doing so. Other than as a novelty gift for others, I’ve never purchased a lottery ticket. Not for myself, nor for part of a group venture. I can have as just much fun imaging what I’d do with $540 million without the ticket as I would with the ticket. Sure, it’s only a dollar for the ticket. But the odds are about 1-in-175 million. And besides, a dollar saved on such long odds is many dollars earned. Instead of buying a lottery ticket for the mega millions, if I invested that one dollar in a modest savings account, and simply added $1 month (the cost of a monthly lottery ticket) for the next 20 years, I’d end up with over $400! That is a sure bet.

I’ve never been a get-rich-quick person. I’ve always wanted to earn whatever money I make and feel good about it. Still, it is fun to daydream. I like what Isaac Asimov once said when asked by an interviewer what he would do with a billion dollars: “I’d take it to the IRS,” he said, “and say, ‘Here’s one billion dollars. Now never bother me again.’” That’s the kind of daydream I find most intoxicating.