Buying a lottery ticket is no more irrational than buying a movie ticket. It buys you a little thrill -- the possibility that you may become rich.

No I don't think that works. Many people buy lottery tickets and really think they are going to win. Movie tickets to entice people with false hopes of riches. They also don't involve gambling addiction.

Buying a lottery ticket is rational if the cost of the ticket is offset by the relative increase in your pleasure that comes from dreaming of winning.

For example, if you gain >$price of a Powerball ticket worth's of entertainment from musing about how you'd spend the prize, it's a rational purchase.

On the other hand, buying two tickets isn't rational. You get no extra dreaming, and your expectation of winning hasn't moved essentially at all.

Not really. If you buy 10 tickets, you're buying an extra dose of thrill because you think "I bought ten, I got a better chance of winning".

My assertion is true even for people who understand probability, and thus won't get much thrill about multiplying ~0 by 10.

  > There's nothing wrong with taxing stupid.

If you're the type of person who doesn't mind people dying in the gutters, then sure, that's true. If you do mind, then taxing stupid is, well, stupid, because you just end up helping the stupid people out even more on the back-end, especially if the money collected from the stupid people doesn't get funneled directly toward helping them out.

Nonsense. If they don't spend it on lottery tickets they'll spend it on booze or drugs. Poor people are poor for a reason.

I just put a couple of bucks on a pool I made with my 5 closest friends, for one of the biggest jackpots ever, here in Brazil. We had loads of fun talking about it in the days leading up to the draw. We made fun of each others numbers (one of my friends chose a number that wasn't even part of this particular lotto, another chose the same number twice), and exchanged dozens of emails talking about what we would do and we also made lots of fun of each others choices. Overall we had a great time that we wouldn't have had, especially since now we don't all live in the same city. It was the best 10 bucks I spent this month, so far.

Am I reading that correctly? You are saying that poor people are stupid?

The lottery is a voluntary tax on the numerically illiterate. Think of it this way: they graciously raise their own taxes to make up for the deleterious effect on society of remaining numerically illiterate. The money even goes towards preventing this condition in others.

Yes, the $2 a ticket costs is a sign of the incredible "numerical illiteracy" (the word is innumeracy) of lottery players.

That or they just 'waste' $2 on a long-long-long shot knowing that they won't win but don't care because, really, it's only $2 and how much does the average American pay for their coffee?

Now people who dedicate significant portions of their resources to scratch and lotto tickets have a different problem than either wasting $2 or innumeracy. It's called poor impulse control.

I agree with this.

I strongly believe people who put down the lottery just can't let go of their super-rational minds and just enjoy an irrational thrill every once in a while. Sure, the people who spend $100 a month on Lotto when they only make $400/mo... that's a bad decision. But just $2 once every couple of months when the jackpot is some insane number? Why not? It's just $2 bucks! Yes the odds of you winning are smaller than Plank Length[1], but just let yourself go every once in awhile and enjoy a thrill and imagine "What If...". The Lottery is not a scam; assuming you understand the chances of winning is as close to zero as can be without actually being zero. People actually do win & get the money. Now, if someone can prove to me that all the winners are fake and nobody ever gets any of this money... then that's another story.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length

EDIT: Downvoted. Not surprised; I just tried to make an argument about letting go of rationality on HN. That's probably the most offensive thing I can say here. :)

I was going to upvote you until I saw your edit about downvoting. I believe you should state your mind without concern for arbitrary internet points. If you express concern over these points, it weakens your perspective, in my opinion, and I am much less likely to award you those useless points.

I upvoted you, sometimes it's lonely being correct ;)

I believe he's saying that the odds of winning the lottery and not in one's favor, so it's foolish to play.

People who buy lottery tickets specifically

Playing the lottery is stupid. To the extent that poor people are more likely to play the lottery, well, that's money they could have used to better their lot in life.