Powerball conspiracy

I like this one because it's partially true. As many of you might know, Powerball is a very popular lottery in the U.S., and it's sold in 44 states, and Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and The District of Columbia. Its jackpots often rise to hundreds of millions of dollars and recently hit 1.3 billion, which was a record jackpot.

The theory is that the U.S. Government is using Powerball to pay off its debt by keeping it from being claimed for long periods to build up the jackpot and then using it to pay off the national debt.

Lottery conspiracies are not new. There have been many conspiracy theories that the Lottery is rigged and that it doesn't pay out as much as it's legally bound. There have been several lottery frauds. I remember that the Pennsylvania Lottery was cheated by an insider—actually one of the hosts of the daily lottery show on TV—who rigged (weighted) the balls so that they would fall into specific slots of the machine used to determine the winning numbers of the three-digit game. This (Triple Six Fix scam) went on for a long time before he was caught. Supposedly, the Lottery Commission regulates lottery number determinations, but who regulates them?

Actually, there is some truth to the idea that the Lottery is a scheme by the government to increase tax revenues. Think of what's happening, People buy millions upon millions of tickets and the winner ends up paying a substantial amount in taxes. Basically, the lottery represents an additional taxation method.

You could say this about all lotteries and contest winnings, both from games of chance and betting. All winnings are subject to taxation, and most casinos and horse racing tracks are set up to require that a winner who wins over a set amount must give their social security number. This insures that the government will get their take.

I'm not sure that the government is deliberately messing with the lottery to make it go longer before a big jackpot is claimed. The rules were recently changed to make it tougher, but that was because the Lottery Commission wanted the jackpots to be larger because that's what attracts ticket buyers.

The chances or winning a big jackpot are hundreds of millions to one. You would have a better chance of being struck by a meteorite, but that doesn't stop people from wasting their money.

Thanks for reading.