Editor:
I am astounded at the number of Power Ball lottery tickets purchased each week, and the amount of the grand prize which ranges up to $500 million. Who buys these tickets? Can they afford to divert those few dollars from their budget? Why would they, at odds of 350 million to 1? Sums of hundreds of millions of dollars is overwhelming to the working class who can never hope to see one hundredth of that in their lives. Statistics show that within three years of a large win, the winner is broke, family destroyed and friends gone. That much money is guaranteed to get between you and everyone important to you. Why not make it easier. Instead of six numbers selected sequentially correctly, why not just four numbers. The odds would be reduced almost logarithmically. Instead of a fantasy prize of hundreds of millions, lets make it $100,000 or $250,000 instead. Sufficient to pay off the average family home or the car and credit card debts, or send your children to college. It would give most of us a reasonable shot at ending a crushing burden of debt, at seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and justify a few bucks out of the budget each week. That would ensure a far greater participation in the lottery. That would make sense to me, while the current reality does not.

Barrie Johnson, Exeland