Almost a billion, you say? Well, it’s still a scam. But the dart’s gotta land somewhere, as Michael Flynn once noted.
Moe Lane
PS: Yes, you may judge.
PPS: But you may not judge too much, because the scratch-off I bought with the other half of that twenty just came in for… twenty bucks. Which means that, unlike virtually every other human who played the lottery tonight, I came out at least even.
I can’t judge. I started buying tickets when it hit 300 million
I’m going to go out, cash that scratch-off, and put it right back into… a beer and a plate of something at the local bar after the kids are put to bed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PSWTDhHGt4
But to each his own. I wouldn’t buy a ticket for myself, but I might buy one for someone else as a birthday present or something like that.
Play with other people’s money. That’s the way to do it.
Lotteries (and gambling in general) are a tax on people who don’t understand expected value. That doesn’t change when the payout gets to 9 figures.
That is simply not true.
The vast majority of people buying a lottery ticket know they’re not going to win.
What they’re doing is spending a buck or two to buy a dream.
.
Is fantasizing about having your only money problem be “Whatever shall I do with it all?” worth a minimal expense? Is “I could leave my crappy job without hurting my family!” worth a couple of bucks? How about “My kids could go to any school they wanted without spending the rest of their life as a debt slave!”?
Clearly, most people find the expenditure worthwhile. At least occasionally.
.
(Shrug) I’ve got a couple of tickets on my dresser that I’ll probably check before they expire. But without winning a thing, I’ve gotten my money’s worth.
Obviously, for many people, it is.
All that above said…
Scratch off tickets are a scam. The odds are opaque at best, and states stopping sales of a game early when many of the tickets are sold without the major prizes being won is so common that it’s not even a scandal.