Playing The Odds

Do not confuse this with the lottery standard. Dumping money into the lottery can be seen as foolish because while you aren't winning any money you are also losing it in order for the chance. This is not the case in this scenario. Credits used towards the drawing are earned by completing surveys and in no way cost the individual less the time put into it. It thus can only be rewarding if you were to win and not winning would only put you out the time. With this is mind my stance is that for someone who has accumulated as many credits as my roommate the strategic move to make is to use these towards the highest prize, namely a five thousand dollar check. However, he wants to play the odds and slowly and selectively place his credits into the one hundred dollar drawings with the smallest pool of entries. I argue that the time he has put into accumulating these points is more or less equal to the time he dedicates to a good night's paycheck at his local job where he assumes a server position. So while it may be nice to have a hundred dollars in hand (he recently won and sparked this debate) in the scheme of things (we are both college students with considerable debt) one hundred dollars is nothing. Five grand on the other hand could considerately reduce said loans. Regardless either drawing does not leave you worse off then when you began with albeit one has better chances. But they are still chances and hardly a guarantee. It only takes one credit to win anything no matter the chances. He can put thousands of credits into the one hundred dollar drawing and yet still be denied by one credit. Why not go big when you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. This isn't the stock market, it's not a living go big or go home so that when you do win you have something to show for it. What it boils down to is I have a pair...