The year-end lottery (宝くじ) in Japan can be madness…. if you buy your ticket at a certain ticket booth in Ginza. Other ticket booths, even in Ginza, are deserted (like the one above) and you won’t have to wait in any line. A couple of Sundays ago we went by THE booth in Ginza. Everyone purchases their tickets there because they have a higher percentage of winners than other booths. Those waiting in line don’t seem to bother to calculate that any booth that sells more tickets will have more winners. Of course, lottery players aren’t good at math to begin with or they wouldn’t be playing the lottery.

Anyway, the place in Ginza had two lines going in two opposite directions. I would estimate over 1,000 people in each line. People were waiting in line for hours to give their money away. They could have walked less than 100 meters to purchase the same kind of lottery ticket with no line, but they weren’t budging.

Over 99 billion yen is given away through this lottery drawing. How much comes in? Much more. It’s the second largest lottery in the world and December 22 is the last day to purchase a ticket. A few will get rich, especially Mizuho Bank who manages it. Far more will be wasting their time and money.

Posted on December 21st, 2009 under Japan • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed