Over the Hedge by T Lewis and Michael Fry for February 01, 2016

should have backdated this strip

Must have ticket to play !

$2 to lose. I can’t stand the scratch-offs that cost much more.

VOLUNTARY tax ! No one forces anyone to play.

Where else can you spend a couple of bucks for the chance to tell your boss to go (pick your own idiom).

Verne said the odds backwards.

The odds of wining if you don’t buy a ticket are zero.

There’s very little difference between the odds of winning with a ticket and the odds of winning without one.

…more commonly referred to a tax on poverty.

It was a pleasant fantasy to have for a couple of days. I don’t gamble, play lottery games or scratch tickets, but I bought a ticket for a virtually non-existent chance at 1.5 Billion.Self-control is the key. The pathetic fools who invest all their spare $$ in lotteries, etc. have a serious gambling problem at a minimum, and may simply be stupid as well. The State running these games takes the business away from organized crime and at least ensures that some public good comes from the lost wagers. It’s analogous to why Prohibition was a dismal failure; all it did was create organized crime with no offsetting benefit to society. It is why the Prohibition on marijuana must fail too. Tax it, regulate it, control it, keep it out of the hands of minors and deprive organized crime of its cash cow.

I’d say the odds are more like eleventeen to thirty-twelve.

Still fun “numbers”, though …

Is that a billion dollars or a billion pesos?