Scrap the lotto

[xchrom]

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/16/scrap_the_lotto/

In the days following the historic Mega Millions lottery, there’s been no shortage of drama. Rather than capping off a crescendo of excitement, the drawing ignited an explosion of who-won-it speculation. News organizations breathlessly reported the stories of false victors, lost tickets and state officials envisioning a revenue windfall from possible winners in their income-tax jurisdiction. Almost completely ignored in the hysteria was any examination of America’s problematic obsession with lottery mania.

The word “obsession” is no overstatement. According to the Consumer Federation of America, one in five Americans believes playing the lottery is the best way to secure his or her long-term financial future. The nation is so devoted to this form of gambling, in fact, that ABC News reports a boom in lottery ticket sales even during a recession. That translates to a record $50 billion spent on lottery tickets every year.

At that level of spending, the lottery is being seen as an investment and the trouble is that from a financial standpoint, it’s the worst kind of risk to take, because the chances of a return are so slim. Buying a lottery ticket isn’t like purchasing a volatile stock or even like playing the slot machines — both of which provide a comparatively reasonable chance of occasionally winning. On the contrary, most lotteries give you odds that are quite literally worse than your chances of being hit by lightning. Considering that, using one’s dwindling income on lottery tickets is a near guarantee to make one’s economic situation far worse – and according to estimates, that chunk is a troublingly large share of income for those who can least afford it.

Cornell University’s Garrick Blalock explains the trend by noting “that when people are feeling desperate, they are more likely to stop by the gas station and buy five lottery tickets, hoping they get a big windfall.” It’s a wholly irrational hope, of course. But at an individual level, at least the initial impulse to buy into the jackpot fantasy is vaguely understandable – we are, after all, hard-wired to believe such fantasies, especially in a media environment that tells us our wildest dreams are just a single wager away.

[RB TexLa]

1. You do know there were numbers games before the states got involved, right?

And there would still be numbers if they got out of it.

[xchrom]

4. And? That doesn't mean the state should be involved. Nt

[cthulu2016]

15. And people died in Iraq before we invaded...

We should hold our government to a somewhat higher standard than the mafia

[RB TexLa]

21. When the government starts loaning people money at a 50% WPR to buy lottery tickets with

then you can try that argument.

This thread sounds like our little ethics/morality crowd getting going.

[safeinOhio]

2. The day before the big pot

my store did over $3,800.00. The next Thursday we $31.00.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. After a big win

the jackpot goes back to, what, $30M? Chump change that makes it hardly worth playing, right?

[A HERETIC I AM]

24. Mega Million resets to $12 Million....

http://www.megamillions.com/faqs/ (scroll all the way down)

Powerball now resets to $40 Million

http://www.powerball.com/pb_contact.asp

The odds on Powerball and the cost of a ticket were recently changed. A ticket for Powerball now costs $2.00. Mega Millions is still $1.00 to play.

[Taitertots]

5. It is a tax on people who are bad at math

That said, I'll buy a ticket when the pot gets over $200,000,000.

[Recursion]

7. The math on when it's a "good idea" is tricky

And it involves consumer behavior modeling since more people buying means a higher chance of sharing any payout with someone

[jeff47]

8. It's not that tricky.

You just have to calculate the odds you'll turn a profit. As a rule-of-thumb, you can use the payout exceeding the odds for the top-prize payout ($175Million in the case of "Mega Millions&quot .

The point where it is a positive investment is lower, since you might win one of the lower prizes. But using the top-line is a handy shortcut.

Now, I will note that this either requires buying A LOT of tickets (175,000,000 in Mega Million's case) or playing for a very, very, very, very long time (If every Mega Millions jackpot was over the threshold, it would take about 1.7 million years if you bought 1 ticket per drawing.)

As you mentioned, splitting the prize makes it possible for your "good deal" to go bad. But they seem to get multiple payouts only after 2* the odds for top-line payout. $350 Million in Mega Million's case.

[CrispyQ]

9. I do too! Here's my math:

There is a 100% chance that you won't win, if you don't play!

[Daniel537]

10. Yep.

I won a pretty decent jackpot a few years ago on one of the local games down here in Florida, and it felt damn good. Free will, my friends. Don't like it, don't buy it.

[coalition_unwilling]

29. It's the textbook definition of a 'sucker bet', with the vig

approaching upwards of 40%. Any Vegas casino trying to pull this shit would quickly go out of business from other casinos offering a lower vig. (The casino game Keno may have a few plays whose vig approaches that of state lotteries.)

[Recursion]

6. It's a tax on having poor math skills

I'm not a fan.

[Earth_First]

11. Seems like a nanny-state proposition to me...

I/we can CHOOSE to play the lottery, nobody holds you to it.

Just like I can choose to smoke, drink, curse in public.

I do not need someone telling me it's inherently bad for me, I understand that.

However, I CHOOSE to play.

Let it be.

[xchrom]

12. No. That's not what I want my government involved.

'nanny state' = meaningless phrase.

You're not the Decider.

[Daniel537]

13. Did you ever consider that maybe other people want the govt. involved in this?

You think he shouldn't be the decider, yet its ok for you to be the decider?

[xchrom]

14. Not at all - but let's tell the truth about where lotto money goes,

Who spends the most money and whiethrr or not government should be Las Vegas.

Then there's the issue that legislators aren't paid for expedient bad government - there is an expectation - correctly so - of Good Governance that doesn't prey on the poor.

Which the lottery most decidedly does.

Nor should the Lottery be the excuse to offer tax cuts, tax loopholes, whatever.

[Daniel537]

17. Its an issue of free will. The poor, which includes myself, don't have to play the lottery.

Yes, its enticing, but so are a lot of things in life. One must have self-control. And apparently most voters tend to agree since state lottery's consistently pass by way of ballot initiatives in many states.

[xchrom]

20. Oh horseshit. Governments job is not gambling

And robbing the poor.

Free Will propaganda.

[SATIRical]

31. Robbing the poor?

Um, they choose to play. And there is not repercussion or punishment for not playing. They are not robbed.

Would you prefer a private entity reap all of those products? I guess it would give folks another rich person or company to bitch about.

And it would be more questionable as to whether it would be fair.

On second thought, your plan of privatizing it just doesn't sound very appealing.

[xchrom]

33. i don't want it 'privatized' - i want the lotto done away with.

the state should not be in the business of gambling.

[SATIRical]

34. Never going to happen

Gambling has been around forever and always will be.

If the state isn't doing it, someone else will. I'd rather have a fair game with proceeds going to schools and the like.

Heck, online poker takes in a lot of money and where does it go? The states would be smart to get in on that deal.

[cthulu2016]

16. Lotto players would prefer the odds organized crime offered

The government uses the criminal law to maintain a monopoly and then , in proper monopolistiuc fashion, rasies the price (lowers the odds) to whatever they feel like.

[Daniel537]

18. Then they should stop playing.

If nobody played the state lotto, it would go away by itself. And yet millions of people still do it. Free will.

[cthulu2016]

19. You will find the word "free" in many of the better dictionaries

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

27. So let's have referendum in every state

Let the voters be "The Decider".

Now how much do you want to bet you don't win?

[goclark]

36. The Lottery is OK with me

My father loved to gamble.
His theory was ~ "if you don't bet for sure you are not going to win."
He had a great success rate. Even then, when I watched him play at the tabes, when he won, he would give me the uneven part of his winnings. I'd spend my $$$'s on something I could enjoy.

This is the way I play the Lottery now:

I live in CA ~ I hate Vegas, loved it when I went with my father but those were the "good old days."

I share the price of the mega tickets with my cousin.
We are having a great time and so far we may have lost about $5 a piece since the Mega got so big.

I see my lottery tickets as cheaper than a trip to Vegas to pull some machine that hardly ever wins, plus room and plane fare.

So far I have better luck with the $ 2 Scratch Offs~ yesterday we won $77 on a $2 Scratch off. We were so excited!
We are going to use the $77 to play the Mega.

[MrScorpio]

22. Actually, I'm all for changing the rules

Basically, a payout for any and all matching numbers… They do this in Germany.

Get one number right; get a dollar, two correct numbers; five dollars, three correct; $100 and so forth up to the jackpot.

Over there the lotto was worth playing… I actually won money pretty much every time I played.

In this country everyone is getting hosed big time.

[CrispyQ]

35. It's the "winner takes all" mentality of which this country suffers.

It's worked so well in our political system, after all.


I love the show Project Runway, but I detest that one contestant gets the entire huge prize! Why not 1/2 the total prize to the winner & a quarter to each of the two runners up, instead of the whole enchilada for one winner? The winner takes all attitude contributes to the inequality of wealth in this nation.

[Johonny]

23. does prohibition work?

Given the massive amount of illegal gambling, why shouldn't the state regulate and tax gambling rather than let billions simply go under the table illegally every year? If you remove the lottery won't the numbers racket simply come back in an illegal way?

[Cronkite]

25. The Mafia woud blush if they had the same payout as the state

My big issue with the government run numbers racket is the payout to "winners" is so pathetic. In Tennessee it is around 25% of the total take. Even the sleaziest casino pays out better than 70% of the take.

Do what you want but the lottery is a losing proposition an takes advantage of people that don't "do math".

[ButterflyBlood]

26. My work gives out scratchoffs as incentive prizes

Hell I once won $14 on one I didn't even have to buy. As long as you aren't dumb enough to think you're going to get rich off it go ahead, it provides needed funding for various state programs too.

[joshcryer]

28. It's a regressive poor person tax.

The worst kind.

[SATIRical]

32. You may want to look up the word "tax"

I don't think it means what you think it means.

[MadHound]

30. Not going to happen,

The states have become dependent upon lottery revenue, mainly to fund education. Where will the states come up with the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to fund education without the lottery revenue? Tax the rich?

[Skidmore]

37. It is a stealth tax and a clever one at that.

What better way can you think of to get people who have been carefully schooled in "no new taxes" to pay a tax than to give one or two of them some money back now and then? How else do you make yourself look like a beneficent legislator than to allow someone once in a while to become wealthy while hiding lifting money directly out of the pockets of some poor person who is betting on a little financial relief?

I never play these games, ever. The worst thing this state did was hook up financing of our educational system to the lottery.

[brooklynite]

38. So, you want to privatize another government activity?

Hand it back to the bookies?

[okieinpain]

39. you can't win if you don't play. I play the lottery

everytime i buy a cherry pie at mcdonalds on whether I'm going get a nice warm cherry pie or a turd. at least with a lottery ticket I'm not pissed off from biting into a hard red turd.