Lottery fever

Chinese Sad Associate is running off to play the lottery. Apparently the jackpot this week is HK$50,000,000. That's approximately US$6,426,735.
"Think of all the things you could do with fifty million!" she practically yelled at me, in her efforts to convince me to go punt with her at the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
"Think of the lunch you can buy with twenty dollars!" I retorted. "You know, when the National Lottery started up in London, millions of people found out that if 'it could be you', it could be someone else, too!" (The National Lottery's slogan used to be 'It could be you').

When I was in New York in February there was a big brouhaha about the state lottery jackpot reaching up to some crazy number - I can't remember it but I think it was around US$150,000,000 or something because it was a rollover. M. went off to buy tickets. We had dinner and then he got the numbers off the telly.
"I got ten dollars," he announced. Sadly, since he had spent twenty dollars buying the tickets, that meant that he had made a net loss of ten dollars.

Chinese Sad Associate is making up her spending list already. I think charities for elderly people are somewhere on her list ("They'll get five million," she pledged). But maybe I'm being too cynical. I wouldn't say no to a windfall, afterall. And then there is this story that Sad Associate told me:

A man prayed every day for a lottery win:
"Dear God, please let me win the lottery."
Weeks passed, then months, without him winning the lottery. A year later, as he was praying the same prayer, God came to him and said:
....
....

"For crying out loud, young man, can't you at least buy a lottery ticket first?"