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With Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots reaching dizzying heights, lottery fever has been gripping Illinois. But winning a big prize can also be a nightmare.
Thankfully, the estimated jackpot values are based on ticket sales, and players generally display a remarkable level of rationality. Here are some of the most memorable stories of jackpot wins and near misses.
Beginner’s Luck
Beginner’s luck is the phenomenon of a novice experiencing a disproportionate number of successes in a given activity. This can be seen in many diverse contexts, including sports and gambling. It can be caused by a variety of factors, such as the fact that a beginner’s mind is less bound by rules and expectations, and therefore may be more capable of outperforming an experienced player. It can also be attributed to the low-vs-high-pressure theory, in which beginners feel less pressure to perform well.
MALCOLM TERENCE left his job as a reporter in the late 1960s to join a hippie commune in the Klamath Mountains of Oregon. There, he worked on a ranch and in logging, fighting wildfires, and writing for regional newspapers. His anecdotal essays chronicle a time and place when disparate people came together to form an unlikely community. In this book, he offers insight into environmental activism and the long history of conflict between resource exploitation and Native American rights without lecturing or pontificating.
Pursuing the Jackpot
With Mega Millions’ jackpot reaching close to a billion dollars, lottery fever is at its height. But why does such life-altering winnings evoke such intense fascination?
Significant jackpot wins provide communal excitement that inspires aspirations and reinforces cultural beliefs about luck, chance, and destiny. They also spark discussions regarding ethical implications related to gaming practices including advocating for responsible gaming practices.
Park and Pancras also conducted extensive research into the impact of jackpot wins on others, finding that witnesses of winners tend to increase their risk-taking behavior within two hours after witnessing it. They hypothesize that this increase may be attributable to “house money” effects where winners believe they are betting with casino’s money instead of their own, which they argue contributes to this increased risk-taking behavior.
As soon as you’ve won the lottery, it is crucial that you consult with a financial advisor in order to create a plan for using your winnings wisely. A plan will help you pay off debt, save for future expenses and diversify investments – plus it might keep the news quiet until a plan has been put into action!
Near Misses
Winning the lottery can be unpredictable. Yet some lucky ticket holders came agonizingly close to taking home a monumental Mega Millions jackpot prize that could change their lives forever.
Studies have demonstrated that near miss events motivate continued play (nine out of eleven studies), lengthen play time in three studies and lead to overestimation of winning frequency (four out of nine). Furthermore, nearly missing wins is often associated with elevated skin conductance level as an indication of psychological arousal (Lole et al. 2013).
Studies have demonstrated that near-miss outcomes (slot machine reel stopping one position away from winning icon) activate reward circuitry just as strongly as full-miss trials do, even without objective monetary reinforcement on these trials. Near-miss outcomes were associated with greater activation in ventral striatum and anterior insula areas which are typically recruited during unpredictable monetary wins in this task.
