Can't win for losin'

So, a while back I took up playing the Win For Life lottery. No big investment here; a single $1 ticket, twice a week. Two bucks a week is pretty cheap entertainment – heck, I spend three times that on Coke every week. And my expectations are not high; while the overall chance of winning any prize in a drawing is 1 in 21, by far the bulk of that chance (roughly 1 in 23) involves matching three numbers out of seven drawn, for the somewhat underwhelming payoff of $2. (By contrast, the chance of actually hitting the jackpot, $1000 a week for life, is 1 in something over 5 million.)

Still, two bucks is two bucks, and a $2 winner now and then would help to further cut the cost of my cheap entertainment. So it was somewhat frustrating to realize that 26 weeks of a $2 a week subscription ticket – that's 52 drawings – were drawing to a close without returning a single $2 winner; statistically speaking, 52 drawings might be expected to produce at least a couple of those 3-matches-out-of-7 deals. But no; I had seen a bare handful of 2-out-of-7 matches, a few more 1-out-of-7s, nothing more.

So last Sunday I was gratified to note, when I checked Saturday night's numbers, that I had finally gotten 3 out of 7 and would get a measly two bucks back.

There was just one catch: with impeccable timing, my subscription ticket had expired with last Wednesday's drawing. I had gotten a renewal notice from the Virginia Lottery three weeks before, but with my usual procrastination had neglected to renew it.

My only consolation is that it was only $2 I missed out on. Just imagine how I would feel right now if it had been The Big One...