I once saw an excellent take on it by a mathematician who was explaining the odds, but finished by saying he bought a ticket weekly.

You can't spend the time dreaming you'll win it, if you don't buy a ticket.

I still don't buy it, but I've stopped being so judgemental on people who buy them.

While I don't buy, I think if someone does so with disposable income, I don't see a problem. Honestly I could even see some people might even enjoy the process of buying a lottery ticket so they might actually be getting a value back for every ticket.

> You can't spend the time dreaming you'll win it, if you don't buy a ticket.

I think this statement is more key to a lot of things than people realize. You can never be lucky if you don't take chances. People often like to defend gambles they take in life by using expected returns/risks as a premise that they are making an "informed risk". At the end of the day, however, buying stocks, creating a business, starting a new job, etc, are all gambles.