Oklahoma is Officially Classified As ‘Unlucky’

The internet is unlimited. Trillions of websites that all seem to carve our a niche to somehow gain page views. Honestly, the topics are endless in the search for ad dollars online.

Zippia is one of those unique website that focus on this aspect of web traffic all while trying to sell another. It was founded as a career building website like Indeed, but since Indeed has the career market on lock, Zippia makes up the lack of traffic by pumping out topical stuff about the country. In this case, how "unlucky" Oklahoma seems to be.

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Recently, Zippia published a study ranking all of the states by their luck. Looking at hard data and odds of chance, compiling it all into a final list that saw Oklahoma ranked nearly at the bottom just ahead of Mississippi and Alabama.

How can you rank luck?

Zippia looked at metrics you'd expect in any state ranking report...

Median income, cost of living, life expectancy, weather dangers, auto accident rates... All the common things that go into a list.

The single metric they're zeroing in on here is lottery winners, or Oklahoma's lack of lottery winners. It's a sore subject that has hounded the Oklahoma Lottery for a long time because the Sooner State hasn't had many big lottery winners in its short history.

The simple answer isn't so simple either. To have a lottery, a crazy balance needs to be maintained. You need people to play but they also need to lose so the lottery can pay out to the few that win... but the double-edge sword of this is, when people don't win they stop playing.

Countless articles have been written over the last decade about how to fix the lagging Oklahoma lottery system. The common advice seems to be improving winning odds, but then the lottery won't have money to fulfill the promise to fund schools. So, Oklahoma is categorized as an unlucky state because people aren't scratching off the occasional jackpot.

It's like there's no middle ground in the argument. Perhaps if there were a lot more small winning tickets and less big jackpots, it would entice more people to play. More players equals more money, and perhaps coming through on that "funding Oklahoma schools" promise... not to say OK Lottery money doesn't go to schools, just not in the amounts the politicians sold us all on when they really wanted to pass it.