Tonight’s Powerball lottery drawing is up to $109 million. Whenever I drive by the big lottery billboard on my trips to Rock Hill I think, “I should buy a ticket!” but I never do.

That’s not to say the ScoopMill household doesn’t buy lottery tickets. We do when the mood strikes. What’s ironic is that when the economy is bad, people tend to spend more money on lottery tickets. On the flip side, frugal fanatics (rightly) think that paying $5 a week on lottery tickets is akin to putting that $5 to flame and burning it to nothingness. Five dollars a week, 52 weeks a year, is $260 that could buy a lot of gallons of gas, or a month’s worth of groceries, or pay a couple months of electric bills.

We typically only buy lottery tickets when the jackpot goes to triple digits, like tonight’s drawing. We’ll put down $2 and see if we get lucky (we never do – the most we’ve won is $7 on a single ticket). Sure, the chances of getting hit by lightning are smaller than winning the big jackpot, but it only takes one ticket to win.

What about you? Do you play the lottery or scratch-off games? What’s the most you’ve ever won?