Powerball Lottery Grows Higher

With no winners in the latest Powerball lottery, the newest jackpot will grow to $1.3 billion which is the highest lottery jackpot in United States history. On Wednesday, someone could potentially be able to afford the Playboy Mansion that was just put on sale for $200 million and still have a ton of leftover money.

With the millions of tickets purchased when it was just over $900 million, it is amazing to think that there was not a single winner among the millions of tickets. Yet here we are. Lottery drawing after drawing has left us with no new millionaires. Hope keeps growing and thousands of people out there are determined that they will be the next jackpot winner, that it is their destiny.

And why not? In a poll taken by Bankrate.com, over 54 percent of Americans under 29 believe that they will be rich within their lifetime and that one-third of all Americans think it will be "very likely" that they will be rich at some point in their life.

Some believe that this will come off of something they do in their work lives that will lead to this, but depending on what you do it is highly unlikely to earn that much money. Some believe that it could be from investing money, which is a higher probability, but many times this could be dumb luck that contributes to this (i.e. Forest Gump investing in a "fruit company" that turned out to be Apple). Some people are just fortunate enough by birth to be born into a rich family and have a large inheritance waiting for them.

For most of us, the lottery is the only real prospect of possibly becoming rich, but many people who play think they will eventually win. This can't be obviously, but people still try. This obsession fuels the sales of more tickets especially when the jackpot grows over time. People at home already debate what they will buy with the money with vacations, homes, and cars topping the list.

With that said, is it okay to be cynical and not play at all? It's okay not to play of course, but be resigned with the fact that if you don't play, you can't win. On the flipside, it wouldn't be advisable to spend a paycheck on lottery tickets, trying to up your odds of winning. You most likely won't and the money could be used to something more useful such as bills.

Buying a few tickets on occasion doesn't hurt and someone has to win even when the odds are stacked against them.