Lotteries are often described as “a tax on people who can’t do math”.
Marilyn vos Savant replied, “Yes, but it’s a tax that people voluntarily choose to pay, without any coercion at all.”
I find this a disappointing attitude.
I’ve never bought a lottery ticket.
Instead I saved up, earnt interest on my savings and eventually bought a house.
Of course $50 million would change my life.
But I know what the odds are of winning it.
I also read about folk who spent more than they can afford on the lottery, because they hope to win big.
I think you are confusing social policy with playing the lottery!
Many people don’t play the lottery, and I’m perfectly fine with that. It’s a personal choice. I also invested, purchased a house, and regularly buy a lottery ticket; those things aren’t mutually exclusive. I haven’t won a big prize yet, but you can’t win if you don’t play.
Some people waste a considerable amount of their earnings on gambling in general and the lottery in particular. Some people have played the lottery for years and won millions of dollars. If someone only plays the lottery when it’s a large jackpot, that’s their choice. I just find it odd.
We’ve got 10 quick picks because I gave my husband $20 and told him to get 5 tickets. I guess he didn’t want to bother with change.
It’s fun to dream of having so much money that we no longer need to wait for something to go on sale. We don’t play often, but since we bought our first ticket 30+ years ago, we’re in agreement, that a chunk of a big jackpot would go for a scholarship fund. But, of course, when interviewed on TV asking what we’ll do with our jackpot, we have to answer “Well, we’ll pay off our VISA.” 
My wife used to drive to the store once a week to buy her lottery tickets.
One day I said to her, “ya know, your chances of being killed on the way to the store are greater than your chances of winning the lottery.”
Now she sends me to buy her tickets.
mmm
Our ad agency was coming up with taglines (oh, excise me, positioning statements) for the lottery. I mocked up an attention-getting one, but they never showed it to the client:
Consider It A Tax On Stupidity!
(But the wife’s out buying a couple of tickets anyhow…)
There is a way, kinda. You can specify you want to play the same numbers up to 10 drawing dates into the future on a single ticket. I already happen to have a ticket for this upcoming big jackpott because the last time I was in a convenience store I dropped $20 for the next 10 drawings. I’ll still have the numbers in the next two after this one. Here’s hoping that the numbers come up 4-8-15-16-23-42! 
I’m guessing things like that (buying ten drawings on a single ticket in advance) may be possible in one state but not another.
I’ve only bought lottery tickets as part of a group thing at work but we haven’t done it in years since the primary force behind it retired. Still, when it gets newsworthy-ly big like now, there is a little temptation.
And if it does, there’ll be dozens of Dopers cheering (and peeing a little bit in their pants) for you!
Speaking of picking specific numbers, I have one set (made up of family birthdates) that I’ve mentally played for thirty years. A couple of times I’ve actually matched TWO numbers… so I’d’ve won ~$20 to offset the $15,000 I would’ve spent.
I was told my chance of getting struck by lightning is greater than winning a lottery.
If I won, I’d probably get struck by lightning on the way to get the check. 
We WON… a whopping $2. That’s a 10% return on our $20 investment, right?
But it rolled over, so now it’ll be worth even more to buy a ticket, right? Over a billion?? Party on!!!
Meant to add that I have no need for zillions and zillions. $2 million (-taxes) would be more than adequate for my needs (and pending retirement). I mean, wtf am I going to do with 600 million? Buy a dozen luxury townhouses all over the globe? Six lavish airliners or 200 foot yachts? Light cigars with 100 dollar bills?
Yeah, find some reputable charities for a big chunk of it I guess. People I’d say have no idea what they would be getting into, and just how such a massive amount would change their entire lives around, and not necessarily for the better.
Again. Is this from the perspective of “All lotteries provide poor odds as compared to the expected payouts,” or “All (most) lotteries provide poor odds, as in your chances of winning are miniscule”? Is it “bad math” to buy a ticket on a low odds proposition even if the payout would technically make it a good bet? If the jackpot was 1 trillion but the odds only 1 in a billion (such that you would still come out ahead after taxes and fees, and yes I know how the lottery commissions play games with lump sum vs. installments), is that a rational bet? More to the point, at what point do the odds become TOO long to make it worth Ms. vos Savant’s while? 1 in 100? 1,000? Million?
In any event looks like both my puny Jackpot game as well as the Mega Millions carried over last night. You can have your lousy 1 billion…
I have the Michigan lottery app on my phone. Yesterday when I went to play their daily free spin game they offered 25 free plays of a new online game if I purchased $5 in a draw game.
So I bought $6 for the big jackpot and played the free games. Puny ten cent bets but it netted me. $2.30. Otherwise not a winner last night.
Am I in for the next big draw of a billion snackeroos? You bet! May reuse my two easy pick tickets and of course my family numbers.
Buy this board and become a benevolent king! Bestowing great opportunities to posters I admire, paying the admins a more than decent wage and hunting down trolls and sending them to an ACTUAL cornfield.
Yeah, probably. I’ve done it plenty of times back when I was in charge of the work lottery club.
I’ve recently tried to buy tickets online but my card was denied. After a phone call I learned that my card “could not be used for gambling.”
mmm
In my town, vendors are not allowed to let people use credit cards to buy lottery tickets. They are required to require cash.
The main lottery seller near me only takes cash. Missouri law doesn’t care, but I assume the credit card company fee would eat too much of the fee the store gets. Considering the amount I see people spending on various forms of the lottery, that’s a good thing. Of course, they could just get a cash advance on the card, but it should slow down at least some folks.
Regarding people who buy lottery tickets as an investment strategy - and especially for people who buy more than one ticket per game - Yes, I agree that it is a tax on stupidity.
But I never get more than one ticket per game. And I don’t look at it as an investment. To me, it is an entertainment expense. And from that perspective, it is a very, very good deal. A movie ticket is $10 or so, I think, and lasts a few hours. But with a lottery ticket, $2 will buy you a half-week’s worth of fully-customizable daydreams. Where can you get a deal like that?
Over a billion dollars now. Guess it’s high enough to buy a couple of tickets.