The New Jersey Lottery’s Pick-6 jackpot is up to $20 million. So I decided to take part of my lunch hour to walk a half-mile or so to the store, get some exercise on a nice spring day and buy a ticket.

OK, I know the lottery isn’t the best bet. But with the jackpot at $20 million and the odds against hitting it about 9 million-to-1, I figured it’s a fair bet, even though the odds against hitting are astronomical. Besides, I get some enjoyment daydreaming about what I’d do with that kind of money. Throw my own farewell party for the job and not invite the bosses, switch from quarter to dollar video poker and get treated like royalty, help out some worthy causes. But I digress.

I went into the store, and the man in front of me in line was steaming up the lottery machine big time. He handed the clerk a big stack of old tickets to duplicate, and a couple of cards with his Pick 6 numbers on them. All told, he spent $89 on lottery tickets.

I exchanged glances with the man in line behind me.

“Oh well,” he said. “You can go to the casinos and lose $500 in one night, so why not do this?”

I said that New Jersey law requires the slot machines in Atlantic City to pay back 83 percent of the money wagered, and most pay about 90 percent. On the other hand, the lottery keeps a full 50 percent of its bets. I didn’t even get into the fact that a skilled blackjack or video-poker player can cut the house advantage to half a percent.

“Oh, you know all the numbers,” he said.

I bought my one ticket, picked up my lunch at another shop, and headed back to work.

On the walk back, I started thinking. This man in front of me must spend $89 on lottery tickets more than once a week. If he took that money to the casinos, he could play penny slots at 20-25 cents a spin and get several hours of entertainment out of it. On top of that, he would get all the free drinks he wanted. If he used a slot-club card, he might get a comped lunch out of the deal, and would certainly start getting offers in the mail. But he preferred to play the lottery.

But then, the same is true for casino patrons who play 6/5 Jacks or Better when there are 9/6 machines a few rows down. Or people who play blackjack games that pay 6-to-5 for a natural, when others pay 3-to-2.

At a seminar he gave a few years ago at the Borgata, Bob Dancer said it helps to be a math geek to be a winning video-poker player. I can see why. You don’t have to be a geek, but you do have to understand basic probability theory if you don’t want to get fleeced.

Fortunately for the casino industry and the state lottery, most Americans are math challenged. Otherwise, they’d never make money.

Now bone up on probability theory and don’t be one of their victims.

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