Dec 10 2024 - Winingest One of Us All

 

The Fantasy of Trees finished on Sunday and the raffle draws were done on Monday.  As part of the team, there is lots of careful work - making sure all the tickets are out of the holder, stirring them up, a second person picking one ticket, the auditor watches to ensure no looking at numbers. The auditor receives the ticket, then gives the ticket to the caller - my role - who calls out the number, then the look-up person who makes a match in the lottery record book, the win recorder, the runner who takes the information to the telephone callers, who make the call - You've won! It's a lot, isn't it?  I didn't win anything.  I had lots of help putting tickets into trees and items- by various children of people I know who promised to take away the toys or chocolate decorations.   Such excellent odds of winning something, too.  So it got me thinking about Frank Selak, who we've read about before - he's listed as the luckiest man in the world.  Actually he is known as the luckiest and unluckiest together.  "Frano Selak, a Croatian man, miraculously cheated death seven times before eventually winning the lottery. Frane Selak, of Croatia, has a reputation as the world's luckiest man. Frane Selak, an elderly Croatian man, is known around the world for being the luckiest man alive." HERE's the full Wikipedia entry.   Note that none of his depictions of life and death events are verified. But he did win the lottery at 73, so that with his strange saga of death events has elevated him to the luckiest/unluckiest person in the world.  But really, we just looking at raffles and lotteries.  But the stories here are about people who hacked the system, beat the system or one that big powerball lottery in California - the one that is over $1 billion. "The largest gathering of lottery millionaires is 110 and was achieved by The National Lottery (UK), in London, UK, on 7 October 2015."   My guess is that Frank stays in the retrievals because of the novel story of life and death and lottery win.  Tracking multiple winners would likely make the gambling and lottery world jittery.  Gambling is considered a problem behaviour in humans.  Cheating and hacking the system seems to come with it and would be something we simple lottery players don't want to find out. The Fantasy of Trees takes place at the Grimsby Museum each year. This is the Museum entrance with Santa - taken a few years ago.

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Oct 16 2024 - Biggest Jackpot Win

 

When did lotteries start? I don't remember the beginning, but I was here at the time.  in Ontario is was in 1975 with the establishment of the Ontario Lottery Corp.  The Canada-wide lottery, Canada Lotto 6/49 started in 1982.   Is the history of lotteries fascinating?  It doesn't seem so to me. China seems to be the origin in 205 BC or so.  But is that fascinating?  Mostly lottery history is about scams and cheating by the lottery owners so that lotteries got banned. Maybe scamming is what is fascinating about lotteries.  So many ways and methods.   There must have been some optimism in the 1960s that governments could keep things honest and legal. The Irish Sweepstakes shows up as the first modern lottery.  It was introduced in 1963 and could be played around the world.  It was so popular that it didn't take long for other countries and governments to take note.  Government-run Lotteries rationalize their existence by allocating funds to public causes and organizations.  Here's how Ontario works it: $2.36 billion: Net Profit to the Province, of which $2.2 billion went to the operation of hospitals and other provincial priorities and the balance earmarked to problem gambling prevention, treatment and research, local and provincial charities and Ontario’s amateur athletes $265.6 million: in commissions paid to lottery retailers across Ontario $199.4 million: for goods and services purchased from Ontario businesses to support gaming facilities operated by OLG $146.3 million: to municipalities and First Nations that host gaming facilities and Charitable Gaming Centres $137.3 million: to Ontario First Nations through the Gaming Revenue Sharing and Financial Agreement $36.4 million: in Charitable Gaming proceeds distributed to participating local charities $2.5 million: to community festivals and events The story of lottery scams remains current.  There are many types of scams and many people engaged in scamming.  There is advice on how to avoid the many scams,  so the articles are long.   There are lottery defeater scams where the promise is that a secret system will help people win the lottery.  There are the fraudsters who make fraudulent claims to a lottery ticket.  A version of that is called "hijacking".  What really gets our attention is the possibility of winning so much money.  And where would the biggest win of all times be?  It would be the U.S. The largest lottery jackpot to date, a Powerball drawing, was won on Nov. 7, 2022. On Feb. 14, 2023, California Lottery officials revealed the name of the winner, Edwin Castro, but did not release further information about him at his request.  And the amount was the record-breaking $2.05 billion US. In the U.S. there are various ways of cashing the winnings.  Mr. Castr chose the single lump sum of $997.6 million.  Oops!  He had to pay taxes, too.  I asked the AI tool in photoshop to complete the little orange koi fish.  Here's one of its offerings.  I've tried this about a dozen times now.  It wants great big orange fish in the picture.

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Copyright (C) 2

The Best of the Best

What is this website Best of the Best? I was looking for the top number 1 'things' and I found this British site,  It is a lottery for winning cars on a weekly basis.  The caption is:  Choose your dream car tickets.  This was started by William Hindmarsh in 1999, who says he loves cars. He grew up around his father's cars - Lotus Elite, Frog Eye Sprite and even an E-Type. There's a dream car winner every week so here's the latest winner story.  "THE STORY As a centre-forward for FC Le Mont in the Swiss football second division, Jorge Reixa knows a thing or two about challenging defenders for headers – which comes in handy when looking at the Dream Car Comp Spot the Ball photos! Jorge has been entering online for a while after seeing BOTB in Gatwick and last week he played for the half-price Ford Mustang GT. Christian was waiting for Jorge in the arrivals hall of Schipol airport earlier this morning with the incredible news that he was the 356th winner, taking him straight down the local Ford dealer to show him his new pride and joy. Jorge was ecstatic, particularly after getting the double delight of £10,000 in cash too - congratulations Jorge!" This is the way one wins: One has to identify the x y coordinates of a ball in a picture.  There is a panel of judges who are experienced football referees and ex-international players who use their expertise to decide where the centre of the ball is.  Game Credit is awarded for doing well in Dream Car Competitions, depending on how close you are to the winning position. It seems complicated, but extremely successful. The site says that  20 million pounds worth of cars have been won since it started.  There's an extensive array of all kinds of cars to be won.  I noticed a McLaren, a Maserati, and an Aston Marton as I scrolled down.   And there are cars with exotic names - a Vuhl, Caterham, and a Radical.  So in my search for the best of the best I seem to have found an example of that very thing. There are amazing things happening around us that are a testament to creativity in action.