People like to say this because it's a nice sound-bite that lets people feel like they themselves are not among the stupid.

It ignores the reality that poverty is a causative agent for lacking the appropriate math skill to recognize that playing the lottery is not a good financial choice, and self-perpetuates that poverty.

I think poor people understand the math behind the chances of winning the lottery.

Yeah, they figure they're going to be broke by the end of the week anyway, so might as well spend some money on the lotto and at least have the dream that they might win. They don't see a downside, because they don't see a way out of their situation.

Poor people don't buy lotteries because they're a good investment, they buy them because its fleeting hope that they'll escape their circumstances.

Probability is like...a Grade 5-6 concept.

So it's still a tax on poverty, by way of it being a tax on hope/aspiration.

Ergo, it can go straight to hell and does not belong in a civilized society.

Even if they win big chances are they'll go right back to being poor if not worse. Winning the lottery is likely to ruin someone's life.

6th grade math ability is above median for adults.

I'm surprised it's that high. I don't think I could do a long division problem using pen and paper if you put it in front of me right now.

Most people buy lotto tickets so they can spend a few minutes in blissful daydream before they come crashing back down to their financial reality. It's like a very cheap drug. It makes them feel good, so it serves a purpose. Feeling good is good.

To "have a flutter" is a pretty common phrase in Australia, and maybe the UK. A quick thrill and then it fades.

Having read horror stories of people winning the lottery, I can't even daydream about being rich. I would much rather be an average wage-earner than have my life be destroyed by money.

Can't you just do literally nothing with the money? I think my "being rich" dream is just having my current life but instead of working living off the interest.

Not working would not be your current life.

Ordering a pizza I otherwise wouldn't have with the money would not be my current life. It's a question of degrees. If I win a 100M lottery and do literally nothing except hand it over to my financial advisor to invest at a modest 4% return and draw a generous 500k salary from that I would still be making 3.5 million compounded compounded per year.

This is more or less how retirement works so it's a pretty well-trodden path.

Unlike you I'd be willing to take my chances with life destruction in this case.

(mostly because I think it would avoid many of the life destroying parts)

I mean, when it's mostly stupid people playing the lottery, all that money isn't going to make them magically smarter.

No, it's a tax on the hopeless.

Why? Because the expected value is negative?

If that's the heuristic for defining stupid, we better revisit auto insurance, which also has a negative expected value.

On the other hand, maybe variance and skewness (to say nothing of kurtosis) have values (and costs) which a rational analysis needs to consider. Some people might be willing to pay to shed variance, while others might pay to take it on depending on the value of their assets and their time horizon.

I buy power ball or mega millions tickets somewhat often. Like one at a time. The 10 minutes thinking about it after I buy it before I get to my office is plenty worth the $2.

The brain still has fun even knowing not going to win and just spent $2.

If you're poor as dirt, but have five bucks to spare, from a mathematical perspective, you'd be stupid to not put it down on ten-thousand-to-one odds to win 20 grand.

Five dollars won't make any difference in your situation, but twenty thousand would be a life-changing amount of money.

Unfortunately, on a meta level, it's likely that were you to win, you'd go from twenty thousand to zero sooner than you'd like.

Yeah, you might go from 20k to 0, but you might be out of debt and end up with a reliable car you'll keep for a decade.