lotteries

By Hilbert Haar

Let me begin with a confession. I have been a poker player for close to twenty years. But I am not a gambler. You see, there is a difference between playing games of chance - where the outcome depends on dumb luck - and games of skill (like poker) where the outcome depends for a large part on how you hold up against other players. Slot machines and lotteries fall in the games of chance category and on St. Maarten you almost literally break your neck over the lottery booths. I have nothing against lotteries as such, or against people who believe that buying a ticket is the smartest way towards financial independence. But I would like to warn these people: it isn’t. If lottery-organizers were honest people, they would tell you how many tickets they sell for a particular draw. If there are just a hundred tickets, chances that your ticket will win are one in a hundred. If there are a thousand tickets …… I guess you can do the math. Your odds are terrible.

Slot machines are not much better. For casinos these machines are business. They are moneymakers. In Las Vegas,