Lottery tickets are sort of interesting. Yes they are a bad deal, but they're the highest variance "investment" you can get by a long shot.

If you're very poor and stuck in a bad situation, there could 0.0% chance you ever become a millionaire through the normal mechanisms, maybe spending $1 a week on a lottery ticket raises that to 0.00000000001% and creates a bit more hope in your mind.

Again, I'd never advise anyone to buy a lottery ticket. But if it makes you hopeful, maybe it's a better treat for yourself than a chocolate bar.

Want to see something scary? https://www.businessinsider.com/powerball-mega-millions-how-...

Per capita lottery spend by state: Massachusetts @ $761/year. West Virginia @ $594/year. Georgia @ $391/year.

Off-topic, but there's a meme on HN that startup equity should be considered "a lottery ticket" (as though you couldn't actively make it into a winner.) As a cute exercise (not too serious) based on your comment, I divided California's $23.8 billion in startup investment in 2017[1] by its population in 2017[2], which is 39.54 million, and got... $601.

(Of course the entities buying these tickets are not necessarily "Californians", just thought this was an interesting take on "per-Capita" investment in a different sort of lottery ticket. It is also funding amounts, rather than opportunity costs people "invest" in these companies by working for reduced or no salary in exchanged for equity - which is the "cost" of the lottery ticket people usually talk about on HN. I just found the resulting number in this exercise really interesting and thought I'd share.)

[1] https://tech.co/10-best-states-startup-funding-ranked-2017-0...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=california+population+2017&o...

Even more crazy when you consider how many people never play the lotto.

However, I think that's the gross spend. If a lotto system has a lot of little prizes it could inflate those numbers quickly. You might not win the $1.6B, but if your tickets win $1 or $2 on a regular basis then your net outlay could be quite a bit less.

Effectively each ticket might only cost $0.25 instead of $1 because you get $0.75 back on average. On this chart it would look like you spent the full $1 each time because it doesn't include winnings.

And for me : about $2 per year

Is $800 a year a lot? Invested for 30 years with a 8% return it will be $100k or maybe $300/month in safe withdrawals. Im not trying to beg a question here... Really is that a lot of money? $300 isn't enough to live on but it's maybe a quarter of the poverty line? I guess that would be significant when added to social security.

Is that per capital lottery spend just total sales divided by population? The more interesting statistic would be average spend by people who buy at least a ticket a month. I'm sure the $761/month is brought down by people who buy 0-5 tickets a year.

$800 buys a lot of food, pays a lot of bills and could keep a roof over your family's head for a month or two depending on where you live.

Reminder that 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense[1].

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-house...

There is one circumstance where I think buying a lottery ticket is worthwhile: your work colleagues have a lottery ticket pool. Not because it has a better chance of winning, but as insurance against the case that it does so you're not the one person who has to show up to work the next day.

There is a social part of buying a lottery ticket as a group, like splitting a meal at a restaurant.

It's not "helpful" in the sense that it's the smart decision for anyone.

The point is, that's actually how real people see the lottery. A big payout feels more likely than a $100k/yr job when you've been under the poverty line long enough.

Remember, the goal of this game isn't to see how efficiently you get to the end; it's to help you put yourself in the shoes of people actually in this position.

The games job is not to give advise, but to educate people about how poverty affects the lives and thinking of others.

So no, it is not helpful advise. It is a teaching statement about why poor people continue to play the lottery.

One of my favorite Futurama jokes (spoken by the haunted robotic future-teller arcade machine):

Look, do you want false hope or not?

Hope is all some people can afford.

On the other hand, money is not the solution to all life's problems. What I would literally wish for my worst enemy: you win that Mega Millions drawing tonight.

Recommended listening from This American Life:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/329/nice-work-if-you-can-ge...

He's talked with thousands of lottery winners, and the vast majority, he says, wish they'd never won.

Neither is a movie ticket, but sometimes you can treat yourself a bit.

It's not advice: the sentence was carefully written to make you feel exactly what you felt.

That's why it says "it can look like" an investment in a better future. (Not "is" one.)

I don’t think it was meant as advice, just an explanation.

I made a very rudimentary lottery machine in JS as some practice. It is astonishing how much money you can put in and get nothing out - even if you hit the upper brackets.

Lottery tickets are a bad investment but give one HOPE!