The love of money is the root of all… Stupidity.

A group of Chinese bank employees tried to court Lady Luck a little bit too aggressively. And got dumped. Big time:

Five Chinese men accused of stealing 51 million yuan (6.7 million dollars) and then buying lottery tickets in an attempt to win the money back went on trial Tuesday, state media reported. …

… Ren actually replaced the missing funds after he won the lottery.

But Ren became bolder when he began collaborating with Ma, stealing another 50.95 million yuan from the bank during a 30-day period between March and April.

They spent a total of 47 million yuan on lottery tickets in Handan, but failing to win, went on the lam in mid-April, only to be arrested by police days later. – [Yahoo/AFP]

Now come on people, given the infinitesimally small percentage of people that are actually guaranteed to win the lottery, how many of you would rely on the lottery as the hinge pin of an bank embezzlement scheme? I’m not bank administrator, and I don’t even consider myself particularly good at math, but I’ve done the math on this, and though it varies from lottery to lottery, I’m pretty sure that winning the lottery purely by the buying of tickets en mass is not altogether particularly cost effective, and is certainly not guaranteed.

I guess if you aren’t using your own money, then maybe you might be a little more flippant about it, but having successfully done it once, (and reaped what I’m sure were relatively “meager” rewards) why would you take the risk of doing it a second time? Insanity? Greed? Both? I’ll admit I’m not a gambling man by any stretch of the imagination, but the practice of “Quitting while you’re ahead” is a well known concept, even to me…

Bumbling Chinese bank robbers on trial for bizzare lottery heist – [Yahoo/AFP]