If The Lottery Was Honest - Honest Ads

36 36 18 18 and finally 22 look at this man he looks happier than you've been in weeks all of his dreams are about to come true because he was brave and took a fair shot at the American dream by playing the lottery makes you think huh this could be you though statistically speaking it won't be I I'm Roger and I'm here to tell you about my power sphere lottery an exciting way to potentially win lots of money by spending what seems like a small amount that will in fact grow quite dramatically over time but you're not thinking about what playing the lottery for 20 years costs right you're thinking about how spending five today could make you ten million tomorrow yes please keep thinking that it seems simple all you have to do is pick a couple of random numbers the birthdays of your loved ones perhaps or maybe just your favorites and tell them to a sad convenience store employee 6-9 6-9 6-9 that's it that's the game you just played a game but if it seems too hard just take your paycheck and plot it into a nearby shredder it has about the same effect well we'd like you to believe that the only thing preventing you from becoming a billionaire and following your dreams is owning this scrap of paper in reality you're 5,000 times more likely to get hit by lightning and 8,000 times more likely to be murdered neat huh I don't know is it neat to find out I'm more likely to be murdered than win lots of money fun question anyway we like to say that we're selling you the American dream because that tested better in focus groups in calling it a tax on the poor which essentially it is you see we actively target lower-income households who have no other way to climb out of poverty we carefully choose what types of programming we advertise on and place higher concentrations of ticket vendors in lower economics neighborhoods that's why the average low-income household spends almost nine percent of their savings on these beautiful slips of paper I'm not poor this is just I only play sometimes you know it's a fun distraction and two weeks ago there's only one number off so I got pretty close because that's how probability works right hey for the purposes of my industry probability works however you think it does at a boy let's say you win I mean you won't if you play our popular power sphere lottery game the odds are a hundred eighty-five million to one that you'll win so we might as well just call it impossible but let's not for argument's sake because even if you are that lucky person you can look forward to a life of regret and isolation 33% of lottery winners eventually filed for bankruptcy and 50% feel absolutely no change in their overall happiness the very thing the lottery promises to give you wait a no in case we haven't already mentioned it multiple times during the commercial will tell you that the current jackpot is over 140 million dollars that's a nice number you'll never see because when you win you have the option of either taking the lump sum payment which is actually worth about half of that hundred forty million minus whatever the government wants or the long-term payment option which we pay out over 20 or 30 years minus again whatever the government wants out of it I don't think I remember how we came up with those options I just know they keep most of the money in our pockets that sounds a lot like gambling bingo bango which is a scratchy lottery game I think you just love he's right though it's like gambling but worse we take away all of the skill of blackjack or poker just to make sure we have the best chance at getting your bed and not only is it just as addictive but literally the only reason it stays legal is because the government is the profiteer of your hopeless dreams so if you don't have enough money to rich gamble and play the stock market we're here for you go ahead make all your dreams come true by buying into our legal scam because with institutionalized poverty it's the only option we give you I've been Roger I've been Joseph I thought I just won a lot of money now I feel weird about it be sure to LIKE and subscribe share this video do i make any money off of this or is it no

Channel: Cracked

Views: 4,622,907

Rating: 4.9465923 out of 5

Keywords: Honest Ads, Honest Commercials, Honest Trailers, The Lottery, Lotto, gambling, cracked.com, cracked, sketch, comedy, Roger, funny, spoof, humor, satire, parody

Id: 9PSWTDhHGt4

Length: 5min 19sec (319 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Circumspector]

Buy one ticket each drawing; don't buy a stack. You're being dumb if you're spending 9% of your savings on lottery tickets.

1 ticket a week * 52 * 20 = 1040 dollars over 20 years.

2 tickets a week (one for each drawing) * 4 * 12 *20 = 2080 dollars over 20 years

my one dollar lets me fantasize about never worrying about money again for a little while. It's not scammy, it's just some people take it too far.

And the point about only taking home a fraction of the winnings. Meh. Oh no, I only took home 40 MILLION DOLLARS instead of 140 million dollars, it's like I might as well not be filthy, stinkin' rich at all!

[u/[deleted]]

Bring back the subjunctive tense!

[u/DrewFlan]

Maybe once a month I'll buy a Powerball and Mega Millions ticket. It cost me $3. I know I'm not going to win, but it helps me dream at night and gives me the tiniest little bit of excitement when I check the ticket after the drawing. $36 a year to dream big and have something to look forward to one day a month is worth it in my book.

[u/ampersand38]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/hm/new_improved_lottery/

[u/smackjack]

All I could think of while watching this is how ugly that couch is.

[u/larrymoencurly]

It would be a paper shredder that visibly tore up your dollar bills.

[u/[deleted]]

Awesome.