Every once in awhile a new site will pop up and add to Lazy Man and Money from their blogroll. I’m a little obsessive about checking my Technorati page to see who is linking to me. Yesterday, I noticed that Money Millionaire was one such site.

While the theme isn’t exactly what I would choose they wrote about becoming a millionaire by gambling. I was pleased that they weren’t advocating the idea. In the Hall of Fame of Bad Ideas, gambling to get rich was a unanimously voted in on the first ballot. With that said it got me thinking. If you were going to allot some money to gambling in an attempt to win, how might you best do it… again considering there is no good way.

I first went to roulette. It’s an easy game that most people understand. Plus it has that fantastic hypnotic spinning wheel. There are many different best to go with roulette, but as I understand them, the odds are more or less the same with all of them. If I were there, I’d pick one number and hope that it lands on it. If it does, you win 35 times the amount you spent. So in order for me to win 1.5M (let’s call it a million after taxes even if that’s not the case), you’d have to hit the number exactly 4 times in a row. Since the probability of winning one time is 2.63% your odds of winning four times are are 1 in 2,092,050 (someone feel free to check my math there).

Another way to gamble is the lottery. Powerball is popular lottery in a few states. It’s tough to calculate the same odds with lotteries because the jackpot are always different. However, this site has the math that shows your odds are 1 in 146,107,962. That’s a little bit worse that roulette isn’t it? The good news is that you’ll make more if you are that lucky. It’s just that you won’t make enough, and you could be in real trouble if someone is lucky when you are lucky because then you’ll have to split the jackpot.

This is all to say that in general the house odds for a casino are better than lottery. If you were thinking of buying a lottery ticket, you might want to consider the casino. It’s rare that go to the casino, but when I do I find that I have more fun than if I just played the lottery – it’s simply a prolonged experience. The downside with the casino is that your money may or may not help out the state as much as the state’s own lottery. States make a lot of money off of lotteries and that money funds schools and repair roads.

Lastly, please remember, gambling is for entertainment. It is not an investment.

…you might want to leave comment on this post. Two people who make the effort to do such a thing may find an e-mail in their in-box. The e-mail may include a code for a free copy of the H&R Block’s Premium Online tax software. Even if you did get the software for free, you’d still have to pony up some cash for your state return – at least that’s the way I see it. I would only leave a comment if you are in the United States and if you can really use the software.

I forgot to mention that an e-mail might only go to those who comment in the first 24 hours of this post’s origin.

If you read the title and were a little confused about when I ran a contest, I don’t blame you. Many months ago I ran a contest. I’ve been waiting until the prizes were given out to announce the winners. I had hoped to include another mention of the book, so that the promotional company would get addition bang for their buck. However, I would be doing that for reasons that will soon be clear.

I typically don’t like to run contests for various reasons that I listed. However, since the prize was being offered to me for free, I figured I could turn it into a win-win-win situation. The publishing company of the book around the contest got publicity, I got a little traffic, and a reader gets a $200 designer briefcase. What did someone once say about the best laid plans?

Everything went smoothly until it was time for Sideways Media to hand out the prizes. Here’s what I went through after I submitted the list of winners on July 30th:

• I was initially told that the prizes would be shipped out the week of Jul 30th.
• August 6th, I got word that the books were promotional copies and not real ones, so there would be a delay in getting them.
• August 20th, I asked again for the progress. The briefcase that they received was damaged, so it had to be sent back.
• September 7th, I inquired again, hoping to wrap up the contest. This request was ignored
• September 24th, I sent another inquiry, but my contact said she had been overseas for a couple of months and email is “tricky.” Also, “Everything should have been taken care of by the publisher months ago.”
• I informed her on the September 25th that the winner said he didn’t receive his prize. My contact promised to check tracking numbers and get it “solved ASAP.”
• October 2nd, I ask how the tracking numbers are coming along since I haven’t received them. I try to give a deadline by asking for them by the end of day tomorrow. At this point I figure it can’t hurt
• October 5th, she said that she wasn’t able to information from the publishers, but that she was going to go out that weekend and buy the books and briefcase and that Sideway Media “will cover the costs of everything.” This is fantastic news to me because finally someone is taking responsibility. I still want to make sure people get their prizes, so I ask for tracking numbers as they are sent out.
• November 14th, (I was away on vacation and it simply slipped my mind a bit) I check back, not having received any of the promised tracking numbers. I get a response back that she’ll “check with the prizing partner.” This confuses me greatly since she was going to buy the briefcase and books herself.
• November 17th, I remind her that she was to buy the prizes herself.
• November 21st, after receiving no response to my Nov. 17th, I try again
• November 26th, I finally decide to CC the winner on the e-mail so that he can see what I went through. This finally does it and I get the FedEx tracking number of it finally being shipped out.

I really hope that Ryan in Ohio enjoys his briefcase. It looks like it was dropped off at his home earlier today. If I were him I’d think about taking the briefcase to Sideways Media and bonking them on the head. I’m joking, I would never recommend assault someone. At the same time, can you blame both Ryan and I for being frustrated at their lack of professionalism? I’m happy to give a couple a few strikes, but before you have 7 or 8 mix-ups, you have to take things into your own hands and solve it.

Interesting stats: The e-mail thread has two, “I apologizes” and four, “I’m sorry”s from my contact at Sideways Media.

I learned two things from this. The first is to not outsource the prize fulfillment. I did this to protect my real address, but in retrospect, that should have been a risk I took. The second lesson is to not run contests. It seems like there’s a lot of potential legal snafus with them. Other bloggers have the great idea of just giving away prizes at random or to great commenters. I’m currently not financially in a position to do such a thing, but this sounds like the smart way to go.

Yesterday I wrote about free tacos from Taco Bell (available today), but that’s small potatoes. The real winners are Jordan’s Furniture customers who took advantage of a furniture promotion. The promotion offered to refund all the customers’ money if the Red Sox won the World Series.

Now thousands of people are cashing in to the tune of more than $15M. Jordan’s Furniture doesn’t have to bear the brunt of the promotion. They bought insurance, so it’s the insurance company that has to pay up. When I live in Boston, I had always bought my furniture from Bob’s, but that promotion would have been tempting for me.

When I considered buying an Ellsbury jersey back in July, I had no idea that he’d be giving me (and the rest of America) a free taco. Allow me to explain…

Taco Bell ran a promotion for free taco’s during the World Series. If there was a stolen base, they’d give America a free Taco. You can read more about it here. Since Jacoby Ellsbury (Tacoby Bellsbury is his new nickname) stole a base, Taco Bell is making good on it’s promise. You can collect your free taco tomorrow (Tuesday) from 2-5PM.

I don’t want it to get lost in the shuffle, but this was a great business idea by Taco Bell. They got a lot of premium advertising time and many people probably will have difficulty collecting their free taco due to the timing of the promotion.

Lastly, you really shouldn’t scam Taco Bell to get multiple free tacos. This would include scams such as going to the counter and then the drive through to get different people. This would also include not going right at 2PM and then again at 4:30 where they might not remember you. This would also include going to multiple Taco Bells or even wearing different disguises so that they don’t recognize you. So save that Disco Stu costume for Halloween, not for Taco Bell… Really… I mean it…