[Gondring]

Robert Nisbet thought that the rise of a fatalistic mentality, as expressed by the popularity of gambling and speculation, was a sign of our cultural decline.

Fatalistic mentality? It's not fatalism to make a decision to take a risk.

Lottery tickets are a means to have an opportunity of a great payoff, albeit with a very low chance of success. It seems to me that the purchase of lottery tickets is a signal of pessimism regarding the potential of reaching one's dreams via perseverence and non-gambling methods--and that is not fatalism, per se.

[oblomov]

This is exactly the phenomenon Nisbet was describing. Fatalism is the belief that fate, rather than effort or character, is responsible for outcomes.