Lotteries don't even have the semblance of legitimacy that allowing church bingo parlors does; they're exclusively an optional tax on the poorest members of society. Then again, so many of our sin taxes are.

  From "Who is buying Powerball and Mega Millions tickets?" [1]

> The general belief is that poorer Americans buy lottery tickets more often than wealthier ones. But that's not quite true.

> The survey showed the most frequent lottery players earn between $36,000 and $89,999. About 56% of that group bought tickets in the last year. Fewer of those making under $36,000 bought tickets, only 40%. About 53% who make above $90,000 bought a ticket.

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/06/news/powerball-mega-million...

Keep reading:

>But other studies have shown that when lower income players do buy tickets, they spend far more money on lottery tickets than wealthier players. A study published in the Journal of Gambling Studies found that those in the bottom fifth of income spent the most on lottery tickets, and more than twice as much as the richest lottery players - $433 a year vs. $193 a year.

Most everyone buys a Powerball ticket when it hits a cool billion or whatever it is; but that's not the vast majority of lottery enjoyers.

Keep reading:

> The poorer lottery players also buy far more of the lower prize games, such as scratch-off instant games which account for the majority of lottery sales.

> The richer buyers are buying the multi-state jackpot games such as Powerball and Mega Millions. And the wealthier players are likely to be drawn in by the big jackpot prizes like those being offered right now by both Powerball and Mega Millions.

The lotteries are not exclusively taxing the poorest members of society, which is what you originally claimed.

> Have you ever seen a wealthy person play the lottery?

I am one. Although, I only enter once per drawing, and only when the pot is large enough that I can pretend it's +EV.

There's a lot of games where I can't even pretend it's even close to reasonable odds, and I don't get much entertainment, so I'll leave those alone.

I do think casinos tend to be regulated to pay back a way higher % than lotteries though.

I don't think this EV means what you think it means :)

Look, when the lump sum jackpot is greater than cost to play * number of possible selections, and I assume that only I will win, then it's a good move to play. The trick is not looking at the financially nonsense sum of payments advertised total. Anyone who was taken business finance knows you can't add a dollar today with a dollar in a year; they're not the same unit; but it makes a better advertised number, so there you go.

The most well-known wealthy lottery winner was Jack Whittaker. His life went downhill after winning, largely due to the winnings and the notoriety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Whittaker_%28lottery_winn...