I'm not sure why I find this so appealing/amusing, but I do ... it's the latest "scratch-n-win" lottery thing from the Illinois Lottery. Now, I never buy the scratch-off tickets ... I prefer to wait to find out that I wasted my money (or, as I typically put it: "I spend $1 twice a week to keep the probability envelope open on the MegaMillions game") ... but this one has a certain perverse attraction to it.I wish they had a better picture, but if you look closely, you will see all sorts of little numbers around the gingerbread house ... and this is on something like an 7x10 card ... yes, the Illinois Lottery managed to combine a scratch-off ticket with an advent calendar ... just like the ones I had when I was a kid! However, obviously, rather than a cute picture behind each window (and there are indeed little windows to open, not just areas to scratch) there's a scratch-off area with a prize symbol ... get 3 matching symbols and win a prize (up to a million bucks), with a 1/2.49 chance of winning (the second best odds of all their "scratch-n-win" games) something per card.
Again, I'm not much into doing these scratch-off cards, but this one has fascinated me. I'm currently having an internal struggle about whether it's worth the (rather steep) $15.00 to buy one just to "scratch that itch" or not. I was thinking that if I blogged about it, maybe that would be enough, but we'll see! Needless to say, having one-in-2.49 odds would be quite the shocker over my usual play (it's 1:40 to win anything in the MegaMillions game), so I'd probably be real disappointed if I didn't win something for my $15 buy-in (this is the reason I don't gamble ... I get so depressed at losing money)!