The math behind "sensible bet" relies on the period of time between winnings being shorter than your lifetime. Unless you're buying a huge number of tickets, even the big jackpots aren't worth playing, except just for fun.

Just for fun, you could take the money you'd spend on a lottery ticket and hand it to the next person you see, just to see how they react.

Ah, but even if the net EV is negative, it still makes sense to part with a bit of money that you won't care about, for a miniscule chance of receiving a life-changing amount of money.

If you're not just barely scraping together, dropping $25 on a negative EV lottery is not going to make one whit of difference to your finances. But it might change your life.

Dropping $25,000 on a positive EV lottery, on the other hand, is an incredibly dumb move.

Since most poor people will, in fact, miss that $25, the lottery is a really bad idea for them. Yet, they play it a lot more than the middle class do...

Yeah I don't play the lottery, but I could justify buying a single lottery ticket despite understanding how horrific the odds are.

Since you'll almost certainly lose, I think the true value is in the fantasy of what you would do with a staggering amount of money. You could do this without buying a ticket, of course, but it feels more real when you have some skin in the game. Mathematically, your odds are still effectively zero, but mentally there's a big difference between effectively zero and actual zero.

Thinking of other consumables in that general price range that provide a short, quick fix of enjoyment (cup of coffee, snack, etc.), $1 for a slightly more vivid dream isn't so crazy to me.

Having said all this, I highly doubt it's the mentality of most lottery players.