Tale of two lottery players is conclusive proof that life is not fair

Gather round, children. Uncle Peter’s going to tell you a tale of two men who lived on opposite sides of the world, as different from each other as night and day. With one exception – they both liked to play the lottery. And this one little detail will demonstrate how utterly random, alternately benevolent and cruel, life can be.

We’ll start in western Pennsylvania, where Tobacco World shop owner Ron Rea takes time out of his day to sell himself a Match 6 Lotto ticket that just happens to go on and win $1.8m. No doubt this sum would have more than satisfied the 68-year-old Rea, who plans to grab his wife of 38 years and sail luxuriously off into retirement. But because he was the vendor who sold the ticket, the lottery corporation automatically kicks him an extra $10k. When it rains, it pours…

Shifting to the Philippines, a 41-year-old schoolteacher named ‘Alfredo’ is wondering what God has in store for him. Alfredo doesn’t want his real name used because he’s a deeply religious man — he even played the Grand Lotto religiously, picking the same six numbers week after week, watching as the jackpot grew into the largest lottery prize in Philippines history.

And then one day, as if by divine intervention, Alfredo saw his six numbers in the paper. There was only one winner. The half-billion peso jackpot was all Alfredo’s. At least, it would have been if Alfredo had remembered to play his numbers that week.

Yes, it seems that Alfredo got so caught up in the excitement of mentoring his pupils for an imminent journalism contest that he forgot to make it down to the lotto wicket in time. While this realization would have crushed a lesser man, Alfredo believes that it’s simply “not God’s will that I win it yet.”

And then, children, the nice religious man uttered a string of profanities that, if I were to repeat them, would set your earlobes afire.

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Tags: Article, Lottery, Ron Rea

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