Winning a major prize. Greed or Stupidity? You decide!
June 5th, 2008 . by adminOk, I was at a Casino tonight. At 8pm they were drawing for a prize of two (2) Vespa Scooters, worth $12,000 U.S. Dollars.
Someone won the prize.
They asked the winner: “Will you take the two Vespas with a retail value of $12,000 or will you take $5,000 cash instead”
Without hestitating, she said “I’ll take the $5,000 in cash”
Ok, look. If you’re THAT brain dead, then give me the Vespa scooters. If they are worth $12,000 U.S. retail, surely I could unload them for $9,000 and still be $4,000 ahead of the measily $5,000 you took.
WHY ARE PEOPLE THIS STUPID?
…and most of all…
WHY DO STUPID PEOPLE WIN?
I remember a radio contest when I was a teenager. The deal was that every Monday they would draw a random date, and if you were born on that date, and the 5th caller to call in, you would win $20,000 cash.
Everyday I listened, I was so excited.
One morning, they called my birthday, January 3rd! I frantically began dialing the radio station phone number. It rang 4 or 5 times, and the person picked up and said “hi, you’re caller #4, sorry” and then hung up.
I frantically started hitting redial…
Then on the radio I heard “Hi! You’re caller #5! What is your birthday?”
The monotone caller said ”its January 3, 1960″
The radio host said “congratulations! You just won $20,000 how do you feel about that?”
<the caller paused>
In a monotone voice said “uh, yeah, uh, thats good.”
The radio show host then said “well how do you plan to spend the money?”
<the caller paused>
Again, another dreary, depressed monotone voice said “uh, probably pay some bills”.
That’s it.
Here I was, on the edge of going insane over the possibilities of having $20,000 and here is this monotone depressed guy who wins the money, and could care less.
In sheer curiosity, the radio host goes “What do you do for a living?”
<another pause>
“I’m an electrician” the caller says in the most boring monotone voice possible. There you have it. He already makes $90K or more per year, so $20,000 to him is just a bag of peanuts. To a young teenager like me, its a change of life.
So they paid him, I lost, and I could never understand why it worked out that way, its not fair.
Now back to my original story of greed or stupidity…
If you won 2 Vespa Scooters at a retail value of $12,000. Would you accept only $5,000 cash, or would you take the scooters and try and sell them yourself?
