What do you think of the Lottery?

[StandSteel]

Hello Buso,

Figured I would throw another one.

It is often claimed the lottery is a sucker game.

Everyone wishing to be a millionaire overnight. Makes sense, one small price ticket can change your whole life. A fancy house. Travel the world. So many experiences... All these selfish hyper egoish forms of consumerism they advertise. I definitely felt pleasure when they showed a guy living in a mansion and couldn't even open a lambo properly haha.

It is amazing what kinda of shit we could be doing if we got that dough. However I personally disbelieve in the TOP game of the lottery, the one you earn millions. So I don't throw money on it. Infact, I once said I would be "angry" if I actually won.

But I do play the small game, and I only see it as a game. My main rule is to only invest 1€ per day. Nothing more. Max prize for such investment is 10K. I very much think these prizes do come out and I asked around.. and these prizes do come out. Even as high as 100K which as cost of 10€ per ticket.

Do you throw money at it? I had someone tell me that millionaires don't invest in the lottery and disagreed.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I think in general, lotteries are an extra tax for dummies and that the governments win every time with the excessive tax rates on the winnings.

For scratch off tickets and all of that (where the answer is already printed), and for all levels of lotteries, they absolutely pay out, but for the biggest ones where they draw numbers, there's no way they don't have their finger on the scale or aren't directing the earnings to specific people so kickbacks behind the scenes can occur. There's corruption at every level of every industry. I see no reason to expect this one to be any different.

 

[Jesse]

I worked in the gambling industry for virtually my entire adult life. Before that, I was an Applied Mathematics major. The following is a mathematically accurate description of scratch-off lotteries that I use to try to get the point across:

Imagine a group of people throwing money into a bucket. Time out is called so that the referee can take half of the money out of the bucket for himself before dumping the other half all over the participants. Afterward, those people have to pay the referee portion of what they had dumped on them in taxes.

 

[bernard]

Lottery makes perfect sense for poor people.

It's probably their best statistical chance at getting rich.

 

[StandSteel]

I worked in the gambling industry for virtually my entire adult life. Before that, I was an Applied Mathematics major. The following is a mathematically accurate description of scratch-off lotteries that I use to try to get the point across:

Imagine a group of people throwing money into a bucket. Time out is called so that the referee can take half of the money out of the bucket for himself before dumping the other half all over the participants. Afterward, those people have to pay the referee portion of what they had dumped on them in taxes.

Essentially, what Ryuzaki just wrote above.

Given I now only load a small credit and spend less than a minute to play. It's fun.
I don't mind what comes after.

Lottery makes perfect sense for poor people.

It's probably their best statistical chance at getting rich.

It's just a ticket away from gold.

Why not?

And the whole conspiracy starts.