An Artificial Windfall Generator
One of the big reasons that people play the lottery (and probably gamble in general) is the stream of small windfalls along the way: one wins $10 here and $100 there and feels like one’s ahead of the game even when behind. Philip Brewer suggests an artificial windfall generator. Instead of paying money into a lottery and getting 50% back (or 99%, as in some countries), why not budget away a certain amount of money per week, and roll the dice to determine whether or not you pull all the money out? He suggests actual dice; I’d be tempted to use a computerised random number generator, since I could more finally tune the odds. For example, say I wanted to throw a $200 party three times a year; that would mean $600/year or $11.54/week. So let’s say I put aside $12 a week for my parties; each week I also generate a random number between 1 and 18 inclusive (or roll a twenty-sided die…); if it’s 18 then I pull all the money out of the account and spend it on some sort of party; if it’s been two weeks since the last party then I’d have $24; if it’s been six months then I’d have $432 plus interest to spend.
Some people might like this approach because it changes things up from simple budgeting, in which one would have a $200 party every four months and that’s it. It’s an interesting approach, and certainly better than a lottery.
