Lotteries: Sucker bet or worthwhile investment?

[thatcrazycajun]

Someone at the office where I work today collected money for tickets to our state's lottery. I was asked if I wanted to buy a ticket, and said no, citing the oft-quoted aphorism that "A lottery is a tax on people who can't do simple math." (source unknown) The implication seems to be that anyone who can comprehend the stated odds of winning in a lottery would be too smart to waste money on the slim chance that the one in several million who do win each month or so might be him/her. Many, many people spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year in this forlorn hope.

Then, wanting to be fair, I also quoted Lazarus Long's almost-as-famous epigram, "Certainly the game is rigged; don't let that stop you—if you don't bet, you can't win." I interpret that one to mean that, even if the odds are indeed heavily against you, ways can be found to get around them and thus make at least trying still worth the money. And while it may be highly unlikely that you'll win if you play, it is an absolute certainty that you won't win if you don't play.

Do these sound like accurate interpretations of the two opposing viewpoints? And do you think playing the lottery is only for suckers, or not? What about instant-win scratch-off games vs. the standard lottery ticket? Better or worse chances? Or is the whole thing just a pernicious way of avoiding hard choices about funding public-policy objectives? I'm trolling for opinions.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Playing the lottery in the expectation of winning is a sucker bet. It's exceedingly unlikely.

Playing in the expectation of losing, but with the awareness that, in the words of the NY Lottery Commission, "You can't win it unless you're in it" is the way to go. Nice dreams, but don't count on it (and don't play too much). I've always figured that if I can afford to lose a buck or two at a time, it's nice to have grounds for dreaming. (There have been times when I couldn't afford even that. It sucked. I didn't play.)

I don't play the scratch-offs; generally the payoff-to-cost ratio is too low.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

"Certainly the game is rigged; don't let that stop you—if you don't bet, you can't win."

I believe that this applies to risks that are not pure games of chance. For pusuing crazy dreams. For a single guy like me to attempt a social life, or writing a book or recording a CD.

For a pure game of chance, the wisest view is:

The only sure thing in gambling is that the house always wins.

I heard my ex-mother-in-law extoll the virtues of playing the lottery by telling my ex how a friend of hers had actually gotten substantial winnings from the lottery. My ex replied that even if you win, you have to pay taxes on it.

"Oh, no--she didn't have to pay any taxes on it at all, because you can deduct the cost of the tickets you buy on your taxes if you win."

I actually do appreciate the concept of paying a painless amount of money for a potentially life-changing sum--Making $17,500 a year, vs $17,448 a year (assuming a dollar-a-week lottery habit) is not that big a deal if it provides the suspension of disbelief you require to imagine being a millionaire. It's cheaper than reading an eight-dollar fantasy paperback every week.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

The instant games, scratch-offs, may have already paid the top prizes when you are just getting around to buying one. You can check your state lottery web-sites for available prizes in those games, but generally, it is behind in getting that data updated. That, and I have a hard time with losing instantly.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

fordprfct and I know the odds, but play it anyway - never putting very much money on it, though. We refer to it as the fantasy tax - the tax we pay to be able to fantasize about what we'd do with the lottery.

[baggette.livejournal.com]

Fantasy Tax: I like that explanation....
I only play on RARE occasions; when I am feeling extremely lucky.
Generally, my luck is Irish ;that is to say, all bad.

"If it weren't fer baaaad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me"

I used to win things like concert tickets from radio station call-ins but that was a very long time ago.

[ex-wouldyoue846.livejournal.com]

Exactly how I think of it!

My feeling is that buying one ticket changes your odds from "impossible" to "pretty damn high." So the folks buying $50 worth of tickets are just deluding themselves.

And as I point out, my kids went to public schools, I drive on roads, and I have collected unemployment benefits. What's a dollar more?

I also joke that I knew three different people who won the lottery, but I didn't know anyone who had been hit by lightning, so obviously playing the lottery has better odds. Then my friend Jaisa ruined the joke by telling me she had been struck by lightning. (I know, I know: the plural of anecdote is not data.)

My Ex-Wife on the Lottery

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

1)"If my dreams aren't worth a dollar, then what are they worth?"
2)"It's time to tax the stupid!"
3)"Another kiss from Mr. Bup."

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I don't know just where Lazarus Long said that; the context may have had nothing to do with actual gambling. But even if it did, his philosophy worked... for him. He had RAH guaranteeing that whatever he did, even his snap judgements, would work out all right.

It's canonical that L.L. was born
* a Howard
* without a foreskin or appendix (parts commonly thought useless and certainly, at least the latter, dangerous)
* with an abnormally large heart that beat unusually slowly and strongly
* with a specific mutation that was in part responsible for his being much longer-lived than the Howards in general. He offered the relevant chromosome as a gift to... "Athena"? "Minerva"? the self-willed computer that was in charge of his recovery and retrieval from terminal depression in Time Enough for Love, when she was preparing to have a body grown and be transferred into it

Can you say "special pleading"?

I rest my case. I budget lottery tickets under Entertainment.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Sucker bet, with out a doubt and one I sometimes take. Usually when the pot is over 15 million.

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

Depends on how important the stakes are to you. If you're betting your heart medicine money or the kid's diaper/formula money, it's a Bad Idea. If you're betting a buck here and there that you'd otherwise likely spend on something else that's frivolous, it's a harmless fantasy.

[cellio]

The key for me is to treat gambling money as entertainment funds. If taking a chance at the mega-pot gives me enough of a thrill to be worth the ticket price, it's not wrong to buy the ticket any more than it's wrong to go to a movie or a nice restaurant or whatever. If I buy it thinking I'm going to win, well, that's a sucker bet.

I CAN Win, I CAN! I CAN!

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

I find most hard-science people profess against playing Lotteries because of your already stated stats, so they just go back to work. These people will probably never leave the planet (even if they manage to get jobs with aims in that direction) and will discount any UFO sightings, unless they see one for themselves.

Workers will see the futility of working for a living for the rest of their lives and play the Lottery every week in order to stop (working). A handful will succeed but it will take most of them until they're old enough to retire anyway. Unless they go in as a group, in which case they'll lose a couple to early retirement while the rest tend to stay on the job with their Lottery club. Their lives will change only marginally until they run out of their share of the winnings and play again.

My ex referred to it as just another form of compulsive gambling with the codicil that if I won anything she'd want a share of it.

My stand is simple:
If you play the Lottery you have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
If you DON'T play the Lottery that chance falls to ZERO.

Re: I CAN Win, I CAN! I CAN!

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

To correct this:

If you play the Lottery you have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning.
If you DON'T play, that chance falls to ZERO, and you have no business complaining about those who ARE playing.