scratch off lottery tickets

That's complete nonsense. The people who buy lottery tickets and scratch offs all the time look at it as gambling. Just like gambling you're not just paying for the chance to win something but the excitement of and "fun" involved in it.

I don't do either so i wouldn't have a number to give.

 

Well, I consider slot machines to be incredibly stupid, but at least nearly all other gambling games, while favoring the house and highly depending on chance, at least have some kind of interaction...you have an impact besides scratching a ticket. Hell, even the lotto requires you to pick numbers.

And since when does people looking at something like gambling make it not stupid? I could consider driving 150 mph down I-10 to be a gamble, that doesn't mean it isn't stupid.

 

Its not "stupid" if you feel the thrill of gambling outweighs the monetary costs. The only reason i commented on what you said is because you were making it seem as though people who buy lottery tickets and scratch-offs aren't intelligent enough to figure out that the likelyhood of them winning is slim, which is simply not true.

 

It's not stupid when you win big bucks.


Most I won was 40 bucks on a 5 dollar scratch off. I kept getting pissed that this old lady at work kept winning 300 and triple figures and stuff, so I tried buying some, and i barely ever win.

 

Well, I didn't necessarily mean that they didn't understand the odds, but that even if they did, they're stupid for doing it anyway.

Now there are exceptions to every rule though.

 

1 in 15 million is so close to 0 in 15 million that I, without a ticket, have almost the exact same chance as you, person without a dollar, of winning.

 

Background info: I like math, and I think scratch off tickets and lotto is a tax on people who don't understand math. I do have a friend who grew up in a community full of people who would engage in this activity, and here is my understanding of what he says.

These people may realize their chances are slim, but the difference here is that they see the scratch off ticket as a gateway out of their financial situation. You don't have money, you end up dreaming about getting money. You dream of when one dollar becomes one million dollars. That slim "what if" is so attractive that they are willing to piss away a dollar.

I understand that you're making the argument as lotto money being budgeted as "entertainment", similar to arcade games. However, arcade games involves some sort of interaction, and this interaction is worth the quarter and several minutes of entertainment. The transaction is a quarter for several minutes of amusement. What I don't like about the entertainment argument with regards to lottery is that this "thrill" is from the mind flirting with the notion of winning fast money. The transaction is paying a dollar to receive back, on average, less than a dollar, but amusement is derived from the hope that it will be more than a dollar.

I just can't imagine your typical lower SES scratch off consumer agreeing with the statement "I paid a dollar for this ticket for the purpose of experiencing entertainment or amusement of discovering the hidden value of the ticket". I believe they would more strongly agree with the statement "I paid a dollar for this ticket for the chance to escape my financial situation. Entertainment is derived from the fantasy of possibly escaping my financial situation." I feel they pay money with the goal to make more, so you can't justify their purchase on accounts of "entertainment" when their very action is preventing them from achieving that goal.

It sounds harsh, but I think they should just do away with the stupidity tax. You're pooling a large sum of money from poor people, for the purpose of financing poor people services. At best, you're just redistributing money amongst the poor. But more likely, the poor are just giving up a dollar so the government can take a quarter and give them back 75 cents, and you're also promoting undisciplined financial decision making.