True, but the actual odds on casino games are much better than lottery odds.
Also, even though this is subjective, I’d say there should be more enjoyment from playing casino games. Playing blackjack in Las Vegas and getting free drinks from cocktail waitresses seems more enjoyable than scratching tickets with a coin in front of a stoned convenience store worker! 
In your estimation, is the lottery player more or less of an idiot than the guy who spends $60 on a fancy dinner each week?
Study.According to this study by the Texas Lottery Commission (first one I found on Google), the rates of playing the lottery is roughly level across all incomes and education levels, but lower incomes and the less educated tend to spend more per month in playing the lottery. It is because they are stupid? Is it because it is an accessible form of escapism? Seems like an open issue to me.
If the person makes $400 per week and spends $60 per week on one dinner, they are a bigger idiot than the person making $400 and spending $20 on lottery.
However, the person making the $400 per week probably doesn’t live in a neighborhood with that type of restaurant. There are probably lottery tickets sold everywhere in their neighborhood, however.
I meant to ask whether the $1,000 a week earner is an idiot for spending $60 on dinner, compared to the $400 earner spending $20 a week. Sorry for the confusion.
I cannot see the attraction in ‘scratch and play’ cards, but I don’t mind squandering a £1 on a Lucky Dip, when there is a ‘roll-over’. As the saying goes, “You can’t win, if you don’t play!”. I know the likelihood of me being a jackpot winner are phenomenally unlikely, but a £1 seems a very small price to pay for the chance of a dream come true.
I know there is no direct correlation, but my no doubt flawed logic, tells me that your chances of having a big win are somehow reduced, the moment you sit down to watch the draw! I wonder if there is data kept on how winners discovered their good fortune? So many of the ones you hear of, tell stories about throwing their tickets in a drawer, or crumpling them up in a jacket pocket, and it’s as though your chances of winning were dependent on your need for a win.
On Monday at around 4 a.m. I happened to be driving in the east end and was flagged down by a stranded motorist with (I presume) his wife and kid in the car. It took some doing, but we got his car started. He was enthusiastically grateful and suggest I play the 6/49 (next draw Wednesday night) so God could repay me for my kindness.
So now I guess I gotta.
Another one of these threads, eh? They do seem popular.
I buy lottery tickets. Not huge bunches of them, but a few a week.
One of my former co-workers called it an Idiot Tax. I’m happy to pay my fair share.
Sure, some people get worked up over the odds, or the amount of money spent over a year, or whatever. I figure that you can’t win if you don’t play, it provides a bit of entertainment in the form of daydreams and harmless fantasies, and I’d be pissing that money away on little nothings anyway, so where’s the harm?
To me, people getting worked up in anger about other people spending money on the lottery is about as desirable and productive as getting worked up about people spending money on beer, gum or pretty shiny things. It’s not your money and it doesn’t affect you, so who the fuck are you to be getting upset about it? (Generic You here.)
(This is leading me straight back into my comments about people getting upset at co-workers crying. It doesn’t affect you, it isn’t about you, so why the fuck are you upset about it? Same difference. It’s not about you, so you really don’t have anything to say about it, do you? Own your own emotions.)
Sure, I play, mainly (as others have said) because if I don’t play I can’t win and then I wouldn’t be entitled to enjoy the “what if my numbers came up” fantasy. Actually my fantasy if I won is extremely boring, it mainly involves buying a few modest properties and investing the rest for a lifetime passive income (I’d stay in my job though). To be honest I’d be entirely satisfied with a few million, I have no idea what I’d do with something like £30 million.
I only buy one ticket a week though, and £52 a year is equivalent to 0.18% of my yearly salary so I don’t feel like I’m disadvantaging myself. I agree that people who buy more than one or two tickets a week are pretty stupid though. The way I see it buying one ticket puts me into a binary win/don’t win situation with the odds heavily being in the “don’t win” box and that’s enough.
I like to by lottery tickets, and here’s why.
A lot of my friends like to take 50 dollars of their paychecks, run down with a group of other people and proceed to drink their money away. I am not judging them or condoning their choices. It’s their money and after a long hard week, they deserve to do whatever they want to unwind. After spending their 50 dollars by dancing, drinking and what have you… they still go home empty handed. (Well, except the few that might find a date or whatever…) Still at the end of the night… they still went through 50 dollars and nothing to show for it.
I don’t drink. I get depressed enough about my own life, I don’t need any help from Mr. Bean. So I might spend 20 dollars or so on a scratch ticket. So what? If I win, awesome. If I don’t, then oh well. Though it is something that after a long week that gives me a little hope persay. Something dream about… What would I change? What would be the first thing that I would buy? And then when I loose, I sometimes think… “Why do I have to wait until I’m rich or have the money? What is stopping me now?”
I dunno. To each is own.
A friend of mine woke up at 7 one morning to her child watching Sesame Street. The show was sponsored by the number 7. The date was the 7th and one of her lotto numbers was 07.
She won $700.
I love that story.
I agree with your reasoning, except that I still don’t think it’s really serious enough, in the vast majority of cases, to qualify as idiocy. Spending money on the lottery to the explicit detriment of your children’s nutrition or general welfare would be idiocy - dropping a bit of pocket change because you don’t fully appreciate the hopelessness of it all is at worst a bit silly.
There are levels. I was sitting in a cafeteria one day and overheard a woman telling a co-worker to back up her story to her husband that paychecks were coming out late this week. She had just spent the entire paycheck on lottery tickets, and basically lost it all (over $300 in tickets and $2 in winners). She’s an idiot.
The person who spends a couple bucks now and then just for kicks isn’t an idiot (IMO, of course), but if you’re buying them to dream, your imagination is limited. I can dream just fine without wasting money on lottery tickets.
You’re missing the point. If you understand the math and you know the odds, you won’t get much of a thrill. 
But going to a movie is a gamble, too, isn’t it? I’ve paid $9 to see a movie that I ended up not liking one bit. That’s what the $9 was for, though: the hope of being entertained.
Sometimes when I go home my sister takes me to one of the “casino boats” on the Mississippi. I can get a $10 or $20 card and play for hours at penny slots. If I win, cool; if not, no big.
Most people see the 100 square football pools . If you make them 1 foot square. Then line them up for 19 miles and change . If one square is the winner,you duplicate the odds of winning the Michigan Mega Lottery.
But ,whoever wins will have to buy at least one square.
I am very aware she spends a lot on the tickets. Which is why I stated she was old and had nothing else to spend her money on and that “I know she spends a decent amount on tickets”. I’ve seen her little thing she holds all her tickets (powerball and scratchers) in. But still, you ever play penny slots? It’s still fun to “win” 25 cents even though you had to spend $1+ to do it, etc. If she’s got the money, who the hell cares? It makes grandma very happy. I’m sure when I go over there later tonight she’ll be excited because she won $25 today (even if it took her $20 to do it). So yes I know people like granny and gramps spend a lot to “win” a lot. Hopefully they know too?
Well, Disneyland has fun rides, and scenery to look at. It’s vastly overpriced (I grumble, since I went to Disneyland a lot as a kid), but at least you get to go on a rollercoaster, see a parade, and maybe hug Cinderella. A day at Disneyland is fun and makes good memories. I just finished sewing two special sundresses for my girls to wear when we (hopefully) go in the fall–we will probably crash at my husband’s aunt’s place, so no hotel costs. Also I hear that Disney is wonderful with food allergies, which is a huge plus for us and makes the overpriced food more worthwhile (though I might still pack a lot of food).
Las Vegas is even hotter than here, I find casinos to be horrible headache-inducing places, and you have to stay indoors all the time. If I want to go have an awful time at a casino buffet in the AC, I’ll go 20 minutes down the road. Yes, I would absolutely consider Disneyland with the kids to be a better investment of money for entertainment than shudder Las Vegas.
So yeah, tastes vary…
I make a nice sum and I spend a few dollars a week on a bit of dreaming. The money goes to help the elderly and I spend far less on the lottery than I do on charity, for which I only get the satisfaction of knowing I am being nice.
But if I were spending so much that it impacted my quality of life, I would be an idiot.
Spending money that you can afford on lotteries is your choice. If you enjoy it, that’s OK.
Spending money that you can’t afford on lotteries is foolish - the odds are terrible.
Relying on lotteries to pay your debts is an addiction and you need help.
Again, this is what I don’t understand. Why do people need to throw away money on lotteries to dream? I can dream for nothing. I’ll daydream that I found a rare coin in my change, or bought a million-dollar antique at a yard sale, or whatever. That’s every bit as real (and every bit as likely) as winning a lottery, and it’s free.