And yet the poor are the ones overwhelmingly playing the lottery. When you're making six figures you don't really need to win a lottery to be happy and have your needs met, compared to someone living paycheck-to-paycheck. You're also less likely to play if you have enough education to realize it's a bad use of your money.

As with anything, you can look at decisions on an individual level or a systemic level, but the system itself (like the hollowing out of the middle class) encourages certain types of behavior.