I am not one who plays the lottery regularly, but I do enjoy playing a scratch-off ticket every once in a while. When I lived in Virginia, I would pick up a $1 scratch off when I paid for my gas on the way home from work. I never won much, a dollar back here, two dollars there. I won $20 one time.

I moved to Tennessee in 2008. I believe the Tennessee Lottery is rigged. Given the laws of probability, it’s just not possible to lose as many games as I have. To save time, I should just have lottery loses deducted directly out of my pay, just like taxes are. My odds of winning are the same as if I picked through losing tickets thrown out in the parking lot dumpster. But I’ll let you be the judge. Here is my most recent scratch-off. To win, you must match one of the winning numbers , in this case, 26 or 24, to one of the other ten numbers.

As you can see, the number 26 wins a prize because it matches the number 26 printed in the red circle. My reward is circled in red.