I have no real goal or ulterior motive other than to document my success or lack of with this lottery. Some people like to claim that a lottery is a tax on the stupid. While they're free to believe that, I'll argue that other forms of entertainment can be just as taxing and mindless (ie, TV). As such, I'm doing this purely for entertainment with no hopes of winning big or goals of setting myself for life. By carefully limiting my involvement with the games I should see at most a maximum out of pocket outlay of $52. Considering that a ticket to a movie costs $8 these days then I'll have purchased 6.5 movie tickets. Considering I think I only purchased 2 in all of 2003 this should not be a problem.

RULES

Rule 1: Seed money should not exceed $1 unless there is a good reason to do so. Payday, gift money or other forms of entertainment money will not be used to justify additional money alloted above the $1 seed. To be known as "Exception Monies": Found money, money earmarked to play the lottery (ie, gift earmarked as such), or other money that is not earmarked for the daily living expenses or well being can be used. However, found money exceeding $1 should be given careful consideration in spending above a total $2 seed ($1 out of pocket seed, $1 found money).

Rule 2: Lottery should not be played more than once a week, if that. Exceptions can be exception monies listed above. However, no attempt will be made to go out of the way in order to play the lottery should exception monies become available.

Rule 3: All winning tickets with a cash value must have a $1 minimum/maximum reinvestment into the lottery. All winning tickets with a win above $1 will be kept as winnings and will not be used to reinvest into the lottery. Ie, on Feb 14 I played Lucky 7's. I won $7 on a $1 seed. I immediately took $1 of the winning and purchased another lottery ticket. That ticket did not win and that was the conclusion of my lottery play. I pocketed $5 that day which paid for some pan head mounts I purchased at a hamfest :)

Rule 4: All games played should be of the scratchers variety (that's the only type available in TN at this time). Investment into other TN lottery games should be done on a case by case basis and will be documented (taken out of seed unless reinvestment occurs from scratcher winnings). Purchase of non-scratcher games will constitute the weekly play of the game. As such, no other games can be played for one week after the purchase date of ticket.

Rule 5: These rules are subject to additions though I don't suspect there'll be any need to.