this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Lottery's the expected value is always lower than the prize of a ticket. And even if you win it is on the back of other poor desparete people who lost. An then there is the fact winning often leads to a lot of other problems.
My sister used to call the lottery a tax on stupid people.
It's more accurate to call it a tax on desperation I think.
I mean, of course it is? Zero-effort sources of income kind of have to have a net negative expected value. Or else nobody would have any reason to do anything.
Now you could definitely argue that the low-odds of winning aren’t made entirely clear to the customers, but I know a lot of people pay their $2 a week just for the high of fantasizing about what it would be like to win.