[newcats]

One more time.....
the lottery is NOT a tax. No one is forced to buy lottery tickets.

[ansel12]

Istead of buying a ticket I simply look where the winning ticket was bought and know it couldn't have been me, knowing of course that buying my one ticket would not have moved the winning seller from that store to mine.

[Centurion2000]

bump

[MikefromOhio]

I am a Calc student and I will buy an occassional lottery ticket.

It's called the Shit Happens Theorem.

[driftless]

I'm not real fond of playing the lottery (or gambling period) myself, but all the naysayers and joykillers fail to understand that many very logical, intelligent people (like my wife) love to play. The anti-lottery people fail to get the "hope" aspect of gambling. Somebody eventually wins. For millions of people, that is enough reason to play. And no amount of chance experts will deter them.

[A Cyrenian]

ping

[TheDon]

"Lotteries are a tax on stupidity."

Oh come on, you either win or you lose. Everyone has a 50% chance to win.

[DCPatriot]

It's fun to daydream for a few minutes of how much your life would change with all that money.....

[dfwgator]

It's like the old joke, "I'll offer you a lottery ticket for half price, and you'll have a one out of a billion less of a chance of winning, than if you pay full price."

Of course I didn't tell them it was for last week's lottery ticket. :)

[OB1kNOb]

Voltaire: "Lotteries are a tax on stupidity."

Such wisdom is worthy of taglining. - OB1

[BigCinBigD]

I look at a lottery ticket as entertainment. It gives me pleasure and a fun experience for a few days.

[Proud2BeRight]

I would love to see the correlation of regular lottery players to people who carry balances on their credit cards.

[Hank Rearden]

Do any other FReepers agree with me that only this is The One, True Powerball?

[wideminded]

Usually mathematicians who say that playing the lottery is stupid are looking at the "expectation value" of the amount of money one ends up with after playing, which is negative. But if the analysis is based on the amount of improvement in one's life that a lottery win would bring and the inconsequential degrading effect of betting very small sums, as well as the "gain" in the slight excitement of following the process, then it may make sense to occasionally buy a ticket with same spare change.

I was a math major and I have read Paulos's books on innumeracy. I have bought 2 lottery tickets in my life and I do not feel that this harmed me.

[Da Bilge Troll]

I voted to create the lottery in Missouri but I have never bought a ticket.

A lottery is a voluntary tax. And I ain't volunteerin'. ;-)

[phoenix0468]

"Why not give $1 million prizes to 300 people?" Strutt asked. Because "nobody would buy" tickets.

This is the really funny part of lotteries. If there were a few dozen large prizes like this than you probably would see a dip in sales. but with one large prize that begins to grow ever larger as it's value increases, the appeal is much stronger. I mean, would rather spend your dollar to win 10 million or 200 million? You might spend a dollar a month or so for the 10 million dollar pot. But when it starts to rise to the hundreds of millions, you'll be more inclined to spend several dollars. Even though it helps your odds very little. It's not really stupidity as it is ignorance. Most people have a very slight grasp of statistics.

[Razz Barry]

A dollar pocketed today is worth far more than a dollar in three decades, which, after all, is the reason loans carry interest.

I always thought interest was like rent.

[kms61]

all the same, SOMEBODY is going to win, and if you don't play, it won't be you. It's foolish to spend hundreds of dollars, but I unapolagetically buy a single ticket when the jackpot gets big. And with a huge jackpot, the expected rate of return on investment can actually be positive, assuming a single ticket winner.

[Dick Bachert]

One has a better chance of winning one of these scams as one has of being struck by lightning while standing on one foot in the middle of Death Valley.

Voltaire was right.

It was also he who observed that "It's dangerous to be right when the state is wrong."

[mad_as_he$$]

Ah yes another highly educated know it all. IF you want to win you gotta be in! I bet $1 per drawing in the Kalifornia Lotto. You can do it for weeks at a time on one ticket. Why $1 well if it is to be why waste any more money than that?