Last time, we explored why it doesn’t make mathematical sense to buy a lottery ticket and why there are still compelling reasons to buy one. Now, let’s take a look at the inverse side.

Would you “buy” an inverse lottery ticket? You can’t actually do this because you’re not the government, but you can conceptualize this as taking the other side of the transaction, aka selling a regular ticket. This would mean you get a guaranteed small amount of money in your pocket in exchange for an astronomically small chance of owing an astronomically high amount of money. Nobody ever expects to win the lottery, so it’s basically free money, right? Sure, if your number comes up you’ll be bankrupt for the rest of your life, but you’re more likely to be struck by lightning while in a plane that’s already crashing. Might as well put a couple bucks in your pocket.

Why stop there? Buy ten, a hundred, a thousand. Even if you buy a million inverse lottery tickets, your chance of financial ruin is only half a percent. Half a percent! If there’s half a percent chance of rain, do you bring an umbrella? That tiny half a percent buys you three million dollars, guaranteed. Who needs a lottery jackpot when three million is enough to live off of for the rest of your life?

Inverse lottery tickets might seem like fanciful works of fictions, but there are actually people aside from the government who deal with them in real life. The insurance company collects a guaranteed premium from you every month in exchange for assuming the risk of you getting sick or crashing your car. Stock option writers take a a fixed price in exchange for assuming the risk of market volatility.

That’s what the inverse lottery is all about: risk. How much risk are you willing to assume? Even though you can’t actually buy an inverse lottery ticket, you make decisions about acceptable risks every day. Is driving your car without insurance worth the risk of wrecking it or, even worse, harming somebody? Is making a new friend worth the risk of rejection? Is your weekly paycheck from your stable job worth giving up on your dream to create a start-up? You are already scaling your risk up and down in exchange for less or more guaranteed stability in your life. You just might not be conscious that you’re making a decision, because no decision is still a decision. So take that risk. Or don’t! Some risks are not worth it, and guaranteed benefits are guaranteed, after all. But make that choice consciously, not on auto-pilot.

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Now, to blow your mind and bring the discussion full circle, consider this parting thought. Buying every inverse lottery ticket combination except one is identical to buying a single regular lottery ticket!