“Nineteen million Americans use payday loan services a year, with more than 100 million transactions done a year,” says Steven Schlein, the spokesman of the Community of Financial Services Association of America, or CFSA, which is a national organization that (according to its website) promotes “responsible regulation of the payday advance industry and consumer protections.” Schlein says, “There’s obviously a giant demand for our services. If anybody wants to compete with us and come up with something better, God bless them, but let us compete with that.”

I thought I was lucky when I found a crumpled and forgotten $1 bill in my jeans pocket this week. But not quite as lucky as Gordon Carnese, who discovered a lotto ticket worth $2.6 million in his car’s glove box.

The key to winning the lottery is to play…but to play is stupid because the odds are so astronomically against you.   Quite a conundrum.