I used to buy a $20 lottery ticket now and then, usually when I was daydreaming about how to fund something like another $2000 worth of what ended up instead being sweat equity in my old house lol. Eventually I did the simple math (forget the odds) and realized that just 10 of those tix would fund $200 of avoided sweat so what was I thinking?!
One of my younger bros happened to win (honestly) a doorprize at the opening of a bank branch once, back in the day when they didn't even screen out relatives of employees. It was a bank that employed my granddad, who took the bro along to see the new branch open and to enjoy the general merriment.
Granddad absentmindly took a ticket for himself and one for the little bro at the door as the tix were being handed out by some employee who didn't recognize him, and he handed the stubs both to my brother for safekeeping.
All he could think later at the doorprize drawing time was that at least my bro held the both tickets so it wasn't him ending up the winner of a doorprize at his own bank.
Anyway the door prize was.. yah, a live collie puppy. My Dad was not pleased. But, too late!, the furry warm ball of energy had already been embraced and so that was that, the pup was ours.
That same bro once hit 2nd in a NYS lottery. It was enough to pay for new drywells in my side yard. Generous man, the bro!
