Why I hate lottery...

[parresa]

I work at a gas station. We have scratch off tickets under a glass display case. Lottery drives me absolutely crazy.

As soon as I see someone lean their elbows down on the counter and stare at the lottery I get a sinking feeling. It's very rare that someone will quickly tell me what tickets they want, buy them, and leave. Most of the time it goes something like this:

SC: I'd like a number 5 *LONG PAUSE* and a number 7 *LONG PAUSE* and 2 of the lucky millions from the other register's tickets *LONG PAUSE* and another number 5 *LONG PAUSE*what number is number 6 on?

Me: 57.

SC: Okay I'll take one of those *LONG PAUSE*no make it two *LONG PAUSE* give me a number 17...

All the while the line is building up.

Then there's lottery witch. I don't see her much now that I work 3rd but I stayed over this morning and she came in. This is my memory of this lady:

Lottery Witch: I'd like a $10 ticket! I want your manager to pick one for me, then we can take our vacation to Mexico! HAHAHA! (she tells this "joke" every time and my manager always picks out a ticket for her).

Me: I'm sorry, Manager isn't here today, which ticket would you like?

Lottery Witch: You can pick one for me!

Me: *picks ticket* Okay, here you are, that will be $10 please.

Lottery Witch: No. Give me a number 18.

I'm pretty sure she deliberately asked me to pick one so that she could insult me by refusing to buy whatever I picked.

Then there's repeat customers. They buy tickets, run out to their cars and scratch them, then immediately turn in whatever has won, then use the money to buy more tickets. I have a regular customer on 3rd who does 2-8 transactions in quick succession depending on his winnings. It drives me nuts. Just buy your tickets and get out!

Then you get a customer like Crazy Lady:

Crazy Lady: I'd like 10 number 4s.

Me: No problem. *pulls out tickets and folds them in half as it's a long sheet*

Crazy Lady: NO DON'T FOLD THEM NEVER FOLD THEM!!!

The worst though are the people returning scratchoffs that aren't winners. It's very common for people to hand me a stack of 20 scratched tickets but there are only 3 winners in the pile. For each ticket I have to scan it, enter a number from the ticket (half the time I have to scratch it off to reveal the number myself since they didn't) press send, and wait a second. All the while the line gets longer.

I really hate lottery.

Edit: I forgot this one...

Customer: I'd like a winning ticket please. Hahaha!

Yeah I only hear that one about 5 times a day. Shut up.

[MournBlade]

I don't remember who said it but lottery is a tax on people bad at math - no surprise they are less than stellar in other areas as well including manners.

[ArcticChicken]

I had some managers who did the constantly rotating scratch-off thing. One was talking about how he'd won X amount of money on one ticket and y on another and how much he'd made. I asked him how much he'd spent on buying scratch tickets this week. It didn't seem to sink in, though.

[Seshat]

My father gave me good advice for gambling.

Treat it as entertainment. Select how much you want to spend on the evening's entertainment. Put that in your left pocket. That's where you spend your gambling from.

Put any winnings in your right pocket.

Nothing in your wallet or your right pocket may be spent on anything while you're gambling. If you don't have the discipline to stick to that rule, he figures gambling isn't a wise form of entertainment for you.

That way, if you did win anything, you take it home. And if you didn't, you only spent what you'd allotted for the entertainment anyway. No different from seeing a movie, or buying a book, or any other form of entertainment.

[Bright_Star]

I had some managers who did the constantly rotating scratch-off thing. One was talking about how he'd won X amount of money on one ticket and y on another and how much he'd made. I asked him how much he'd spent on buying scratch tickets this week. It didn't seem to sink in, though.

They don't seem to realize that if they spend more than they "win" then they haven't really won anything.

[jjc927]

I see one guy in the store I work in at least twice a week that he will stand at the customer service station for at least an hour just playing scratch offs.

I also once saw a woman turn in $257 worth of winning tickets just to spend that money on more tickets.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

... I play the lotto ...




... I'm never gonna get out of my current job unless I win...




BUT not all the time, and I am organized when I do go the counter when I buy tickets.

See. I put aside a few bucks whenever I get paid, but let the money build up for a couple of months before buying. Plus, I add in any winnings from previous draws and any free tickets. So, when I do buy, I end up spending around a hundred dollars for one draw.

I also have been known to let other customers ahead of me so that they can go on with their day and not wait. I'm just that kind of guy.



ON ANOTHER NOTE, I did see a guy completely flip out when a clerk refused to validate his winning ticket.

Then I got to see the card... it was one of those scratch'n'win cards that had a maze of some kind, and the 'winner' didn't follow the rules and drew a line straight to the jackpot square.

He stormed out of the business swearing and yelling that he would just go elsewhere to get his prize...

[Teefies2]

My father gave me good advice for gambling.

Treat it as entertainment. Select how much you want to spend on the evening's entertainment. Put that in your left pocket. That's where you spend your gambling from.

Put any winnings in your right pocket.

Your father is a smart man!

[Polenicus]

My first 'real' job (Not counting newspaper delivery or my stint working in a small island marina) was working in a Lotto booth in a mall.

It was depressing, because I'd see retired people come in, and literally blow $300 in one go. Most people would always keep farming their winnings back into more tickets until they went completely bust... I kept expecting one of our few big winners (We had a couple of $1000 winners while I was there) turn around and blow it all on a full brick of 500 tickets.

To this day I simply have no urge to gamble. At all.

[blas]

I could totally take this topic and go on for 3 days about it.

I really could. I better not.

I will say, I hated lotto whores more than anything when I worked at the gas station.

Oh, and I remember some kind of conspiracy about whatever number in the corner that that scratch off was on, sometimes it meant it was a winner or not? Meh, I don't even know. People are nuts.

[parresa]

I could totally take this topic and go on for 3 days about it.

I really could. I better not.

No, go on, it's theraputic for me!

I remember some kind of conspiracy about whatever number in the corner that that scratch off was on, sometimes it meant it was a winner or not?

People ask me about the corner numbers all the time. The weird thing is they never NOT buy them no matter what my response is. I asked one of them one time and he said he doesn't buy numbers less than 10 because they won't be winners... then one of the ones he wanted was on 3... and he said "Oh go on then." What's the point?

[Seshat]

Your father is a smart man!

Thank you. I've followed the spirit of his rule (not always the letter), and - well, the total amount I've spent gambling in my life is far, FAR less than the amount I've spent on books!

[xaenon]

I used to have people ask me which one I'd play. And I'd always reply "Oh, I don't play those things."

One person replied, "Well, you can't win if you don't play."

My response: "Spending more than you win ain't winning."

[blas]

Well, there was another conspiracy that if there was white by the perforation, that either that one or the one below it (since they are attached, you can't tell which one without scratching) is a winner. That proved to be false SO many times, but so many idiot customers swore by that dumb theory.

I had so many idiots buying lotto tickets holding up the line, being indecisive, blaming ME for wasting their money and losing on every one of them, blaming ME for not knowing which ones were "hot" and were going to pay out (I'm smarter than you, I don't gamble on these things often, moron), and they'd always have the best lines. "Pick me a winner, herherherher!!!" "Hyck hyuck this better be a winner!"

Oh, and the fact that we had a single booth area over by the coffee area, and that's where all the gamblers went to scratch in peace after I'd either ask them to move out of other customers' ways, or they simply had SO many that they'd stay for what seemed like forever. And they DID. And they always left a MESS.

[ShootMePlease]

Heh.

I worked with the lottery for 12 years and it never ceased to piss me off when folks who clearly couldn't afford to be spending the money they were spending would buy hundreds of dollars worth of scratchies or regular lottery. I always kept my mouth shut about it. Until one of our regulars became way out of control with the scratchies and would beg for credit to get some. It got so bad I finally yelled at her that she needed to get help when she called one day. She got really angry and hung up. This of course did not prevent her from coming in an hour later to ask again.

I'm not sad I don't have to deal with that anymore.