Jackpot!

Four people have the winning numbers (8, 18, 22, 40 and 44, with the mega ball being 11) to the estimated $330 Mega Millions Jackpot, USA Today reported today.

According to an article from USA Today, each of the winners is from New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Texas and chances of someone getting all five numbers right and the mega ball number is one in 176 million.

Everyone has probably heard some point in their lives that one has a better chance of getting hit by lighting twice or drowning in a bathtub than winning the lottery. That doesn’t seem to have any effect on my mother and her co-workers who repeatedly buy 130 tickets every time there is a jackpot. Each of her co-workers spends to an average of $10-$15 in tickets.

The Florida Times-Union also had an article featured about the lottery winnings. According to the article, a man named Joe Abufarha, a manager for RaceWay, states that business is big when there are jackpots like this. He told the Times-Union, he sold $200 worth of tickets to one customer.

So has the lottery become a new form of gambling, losing more money in hopes of getting more?

If this is so, more people may likely to buy it now than ever before since the jackpot could happen to anyone and not just anyone, in this case, four people. The dream of becoming a millionaire at any given moment can now be a reality if people just picked the right numbers.