Not to hijack the pit thread, but I’ve always thought people who bought a lot of lottery tickets are idiots. Usually, they’re people for whom that $20 (or more) is a decent percentage of their pay. If you make $10 per hour and work 40 hours a week, you’ll spend 5 percent of your before tax pay on lottery tickets?
Why?
I can certainly see why people play blackjack or poker, but I can’t imagine really enjoying scratching tickets and being covered with that silver covering
I guess there might be a slight thrill in scratching off a ticket ‘to see if you’ve won’ or waiting for the winning numbers to be called.
I know the lottery has been called a tax on the stupid. Any reason not to believe this?
Idiot is a word with no real (modern) definition. Your question cannot be answered factually. (But this is not GQ, so you’re golden.)
Some are. Some are not.
Some people are problem gamblers. Some gamble without a clear understanding of the two sides of a bet (risk v odds). Some gamble with spare money for fun.
I enjoy gambling, I even like to buy lottery tickets and brood over them all week with big dreams. I never gamble with money I don’t have; I do not gamble regularly. I do not think I am an idiot.
I’ve never seen the appeal, but some here will defend it. I can see buying one on a whim every once in a while (though I don’t), but yeah, I find it puzzling. And I just love our wonderful governor’s recent suggestion to expand the lottery and encourage everyone to play, thus saving our budget! Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.
They’re not idiots. They just don’t understand how insignificant the odds are of them winning. They think “well, some people win something each week, and this time it could be me!” which is bolstered by them getting one of the small prizes every few months or so.
There wouldn’t be any lotteries or casinos if they actually understood the maths.
My friend’s grandma is old, her husband is dead, she lives with her daughter and has disposable income.
And damn that lady wins! I know she must spend a decent amount on the tickets, but I was over a week ago and she won $1000, another day $150, etc. At least once a week my friend will tell me grandma won some amount over $50. I told her I’m gonna take her to the casino with me sometime and make her pull the handle on my slot machine.
But yes, overall, I think spending money on lottery tickets can be stupid, depending on how much “extra” money you have. If the lottery ticket you buy causes you to not be able to buy as many groceries as you’d like, that’s bad and stupid. But if you really do have $5 laying around you weren’t gonna spend on anything else, it’s not a big deal. Yeah the chances are low that you’ll win big and chances still kinda low you’ll even get that $5 back, but some people find it fun.
When I turned 18 I bought scratch-offs for awhile. I never won though, and got frustrated and quit buying them. At 21 I went to the casino, and never spend more than $7 or so on penny slots because I never win; it’s just a fun way to kill a night every once in awhile.
But people that buy lots of lottery tickets/cash them in causes a long line at the gas station :mad: That gets on my nerves.
This isn’t true. You can know the odds and think that it’s worth $5 for the thrill you get from gambling. If the only goal was to win money, then no, people wouldn’t play. If you approach it as paying for the excitement of anticipation with any money won as a bonus, then there’s no idiocy in that.
That’s why I do it. I know the odds, I don’t spend anything that affects my budget (actually, I only play when it’s over 100 million and then maybe 5 bucks). It’s fun, it gives me up to a couple days of thinking “what would life be like?” and I find that worth it.
I think there would, but their business would be diminished. For many people, a lottery ticket is a license to daydream, basically. If that’s worth the price to them, they’re not doing anything stupid.
It is certainly possible to construct a hypothetical scenario in which buying a lottery ticket is reasonable. Your financial situation could be such that you consider $1 for a ticket utterly inconsequential, but that the potential payout would be life changing. So the minuscule chance of winning would be greater than the $1. In reality, this virtually never applies since even though $1 is pretty small, is not actually as inconsequential as the chance of winning. So yes, most people who play are idiots, in the sense that it is not a winning financial proposition.
If you have some disposable income, it’s entertainment. I never remember to buy any unless there’s a big jackpot that they’re pushing.
Mathematically, if the odds are 1 in 14M or 15M and the jackpot is on a par, then it isn’t really a bad bet. I.e. if you could buy all the combinations of numbers, you’d do a little better than break even, since lesser combinations would also pay off. That supposes, of course, that you don’t have to share with another winner.
I don’t think you can tell if they’re idiots until after the drawing. If they win 30 million, they’re not idiots.
Maybe, maybe once every two years or so, when the Powerball tops 250 million or something, I’ll buy a $5 quick-pick thing. And truth to tell, I feel foolish in the end, because I know it’s a waste.
This is more or less how I do it. I play the “game” that has smaller jackpots (and also a higher chance of winning), and I buy tickets only when the payout has reached a level (after taxes) that would allow me to quit working. The amount I spend is an insignificant portion of my overall discretionary spending. It’s an entertainment expense for me.
Pretty much exactly how I play. I am clear on the odds but it is fun dreaming a little. I hardly ever play but when it tops $100 million I’ll drop $5-10 if I remember and it is convenient (most times I never even notice it is over $100 million or any amount really).
That may make me an idiot but $5-10 in my scheme of things is not significant so guess I am just a little bit an idiot on the idiot continuum.
I don’t buy lottery tickets, but I often dream of winning the big bucks. Then I realize that I don’t buy lottery tickets, so it’s unlikely to work out that way. So, I agree, it’s the price of fantasizing.
I think this is part of what I don’t get about gambling in general. To me, it’s just throwing money into a hole. What’s fun about that? I know people do win every once in a while, but it’s just not gonna happen to me. The idea of purposely budgeting $100 to blow in Vegas because it’s entertaining to throw it away is just totally strange to me.
We buy the occasional lottery ticket. For Entertainment Purposes Only. I know…we’re easily amused.
It’s lotto addicts who are the issue. People who spend exhorbitant amounts of their scarce money in hopes of striking it big are either addicted, pathetically desperate, or deluded. The occasional gamble is fun, but when you try to turn it into a source of income, you’re probably in trouble.
Bolding mine. Silver Tyger Girl is right on the mark.
You don’t see the fun because you don’t see it in an optimistic way. Optimists think “it could totally happen to me!” You don’t need big bucks to win the lottery. You don’t need to have a good job or a happy life or a pot to piss in. Just $1, and anyone can win!
Tickets to a baseball game cost like $40 and up and have no chance of returning any money to a patron, other than a very rare chance at catching a foul ball that’s worth what, $8? If people understood the math, nobody would go see a baseball game.
Of course, that’s nonsense. People pay $40 to be entertained. Most people who buy lottery tickets use it as a form of escapism – plunk down $20 and imagine the possibilities of hitting the big one. Sometimes you’ll win $5 or $10, very occasionally $100 or so, and it whets the appetite: I almost won bigger!
There are some people who seriously view the lottery as an investment. I think those numbers are much, much fewer than anti-lottery people would believe. Many more people play the lottery to engage in… fun. (gasp!) Odd how different people find different things fun, eh?
