Playing the Runescape Lottery

I find this interesting phenomana.....there's a number of people I know who seem to like to play "The runescape lottery".

There's a couple different ways you can play:

1) Barrows. Go fight the barrows brothers. Maybe you'll get some runes and bolt racks, maybe you'll get a Verac's Brassard maybe you'll "win" big and get Guthans!

2) Clue scrolls. I personally find these fun. But there are people who will WHINE! past themselves when they "have" to do these. But they can't just let it go because it might result in money. But, almost inevitably, the clue hunter ends up WHINING again about how they "only" got 20 laws, 10 nats, a black d'hide body and msb. How very tragic!

3) Killing for the "big" drop. GWD, dragons, kq, kbd.....gotta love them! They might drop a visage/hilt/winning lottery ticket. Woohoo!!

Don't get me wrong. I 've done a number of these (all?) of them. Some are a lot of fun (KBD hunt anyone?) others...meh....not my thing. Personal choice.

What I find odd...funny?.....bummer? is that there are a lot of people who seem to think that it's about scoring big $$. I met a guy at steel dragons who's goal was to get a visage drop to fund his run to 99 cooking. Okey.......uhm.....hmmm.....

I just think, for me, that I'd like to make my money in a consistent fashion. I can understand wanting to hit it big. I mean, I've bought my share of real life lottery and raffle tickets. But for the most part...you figure out what you want....what it takes to get there and go that way. My question is what is more effective? Working (grinding) away at something or playing the odds and hoping against those odds for a lucky drop?