To me, lotteries represent ...

I get sick of hearing the smug crap about lotteries being a tax on people who can't do math. There are plenty of mathematically literate people who realize that lotteries are for fun, not investing.

The lottery is a tax, often on the disadvantaged and least able to make rational decisions. It is collected by a private agency, who takes a sizable chunk of it, so it's also a tax that rivals anything we've seen in Iraq or Afghanistan in terms of money diverted. The government collects thrice on what's left -- the "causes" the lottery funds (all of which are things the government is - or should be - wholly responsible for), the corporate tax (assuming the lottery isn't in a tax haven) and finally the income tax of the winner.

Those who do "win" then go clinically insane (the usual fate), get harassed by "friends", family and the media until they then go insane (or broke in paying everyone to go away), or otherwise lose all of these supposed winnings due to the incredibly toxic atmosphere that revolves around lotteries.

Of course, it could be worse. The amount spent on US elections this season has eclipsed the total spending on ALL science, research and development by the US government. A handful of degenerate media spectacles, questionably-run elections where rules have been changed after-the-fact to fix who wins, advertising filled with bile, malice and 100% fraudulent statements, and we're not even into the main part yet. How's that similar? Because it's POPULAR toxic spending, that's how. If it wasn't popular, toxic spending wouldn't happen.

Agreed. I'm not stupid. It's just fun to be able to daydream "what if I win?"

This is an inane remark on many levels. Obviously you don't have any numbers, and the claim is bullshit simply because it's ridiculous to compare a process that is largely funded by private entities with federal funding of science and R&D, while ignoring the far larger industrial R&D and scientific research. Tell me, how much do you suppose drug companies spent this year on trials? How much did Intel spend on R&D for their next processor?

The reason elections are expensive is that they decide who makes the policies that affects almost the entire economy. (And you're conveniently vauge on whether we're talking about federal elections or state.) If anything, the problem is that the government is so all-encompassing that people feel that it encroaches on every aspect of their life. If we had a smaller government, it could just focus on a few things, like sponsoring science, rather than being everything to everyone.

Elections are an adversarial process, whereas science is a collaborative process. Adversarial processes are, by nature, far more expensive than collaborative.

And even if you had a clue how to compare these things, you still have no idea what's going on. The Republican primaries this season are drawn out because the primary rules were changed in response to widespread sentiment that the presidential primaries in '08 didn't produce a good candidate. So the GOP is making a major change in how it does its business to try to be more responsive to voters.

This. A thousand times this.

The lottery is bad, not because it is a tax, but because it is a regressive tax. Rich people don't play the lottery, its mostly the poor, and some times the middle class. Ever notice (or at least hear jokes about) how on welfare check day people are queued up to buy tickets? It's because for many of the poor the lottery is a chance to get out of poverty. Unfortunately many of these people are poor because they don't have the education to get a well paying job. So while most ./ers realize that the lottery is a tax on people with poor math skills, guess who those people are.

I personally find the lottery appalling. The government shouldn't be taking advantage of its own people, doubly so when it is the people that need the government's help the most!

Like I told my father in law, the dollar buys you the fantasy of going and taking a dump on your boss's desk (or quietly peeing in all the corners of the peoples' offices you don't like, and then quitting abruptly). That's all. I know I'm not going to win it, but the fantasy breaks down if you don't spend the dollar. (If you're spending more than $1, though, then you're wasting your money.)

Make it.

Don't fantasize, make your dreams happen.

I chipped $5 into the office lottery pool for the sole reason that I didn't want to be the one non-winner in the company.

Reporter: Mr. JSG, how does it feel knowing that everyone you worked with is now rich and retired?
Me: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Not gonna happen.

I may only have a 1 in 28,633,528 chance of having a winning ticket, but really it's the only realistic chance I'll ever have to get $50 million.

Anyway I can afford to occasionally gamble the $5 for the minuscule chance of that $50 million.

You can have that fantasy for free, you're just being unimaginitive.

Even if you can't have your fantasies without a realistic component, it shouldn't be too hard to imagine another low probability event that brings in a large sum of money without using up your $1.

If you're willing to throw money away for a fantasy, you should instead be tossing it into high-risk investments. If you put $1/day into Apple stock back in 1997, you'd have roughly $218,400 today. If you had done that for several years, you'd have several million dollars today. It's unlikely that you would have picked Apple, but compared to winning the lottery...(if you had chosen a NASDAQ company at random to put your money into, your chances of picking Apple would have been 1 in 2,711, compared to the 1 in a million+ chances of winning a major lottery...and most of the other outcomes wouldn't be a loss).

If only poor people had you making the decisions for them.

If gambling was okay, then why all the heavy handed regulation? And if it is bad, why does the government do it (here in Ontario it is a government run monopoly)?

History has repeatedly shown that the negative social impacts of gambling are just to great to be ignored. That is why it is either illegal or highly regulated everywhere in the developed world (including the freedom loving USA). And that it my issue with it.

Basically the government is saying that gambling is so disruptive it must be made illegal for the private sector to engage in it. But on the other hand it is perfectly fine for the government to do it. Add to that here in Ontario is was illegal for decades until the government got into cash problems and didn't want to raise taxes. They already knew it was unethical but did it anyways.

It would be like the government opening up a state run monopoly on selling marijuana after decades of it being illegal. If it is okay, then let the free market at it, if it is wrong then don't do it.

You forget about shades of grey.
Total freedom to purchase and consume alcohol regardless of age and motor vehicles you are operating? - Bad Idea
Prohibition? - "Here is your money and power, Mr Capone"
I'd probably vote for very regulated sales of marijuana, and for prohibition of heroin.

Regarding lotteries, they are a triumph of the 1%.
Convince a population that progressive taxes are for the sinister unAmerican communo-nazi-muslims.

Money still needs to come form somewhere.
But don't worry! We can rely those whose glum desperation outweighs their reason. They will pay for it all.
It is regressive taxation, and the smug ones are those who persuaded the poorest to pay the taxes.

But that's where you could be in 15 years, a lottery ticket is where you can be next week. Next week, no more mortgage to the chimney, no more McJob, no more rust wreck, no more cheapass vacations and skimping on the fun stuff. You can afford to buy a McMansion, quit your job, get a Ferrari, go to a luxury resort and eat caviar and drink champagne. One way or another you'd probably score some premium pussy too. No, there's not really many other events than winning the lottery that offers that (though I did get a tempting offer from a Nigerian prince in my email), not of such proportion and immediacy.

That said, those of us that really think this way may make up many people, but we make up a very small portion of the money involved in gambling. I have absolutely no interest in sitting down at a game where my top earning would be less than $10,000 because I know it's not a zero-sum game, in some way they're making a profit on me and in the long run I'd lose. I'd have to beat the odds to win and in a big lottery that can happen, it just takes one winning ticket and I'd be way, way ahead. But I only need the one ticket too, I don't need five or ten or a hundred. I just want to pay the least possible to be in that pool, no more.

Don't bury yourself with a mortgage to begin with? Stop buying into the "American Dream" and start living debt free. It's not very difficult to actually own a decent car. Nor does it take too much dedication to actually own your house and land. Hell, if you've even got a shred of intellect you can work entirely for yourself! The lottery isn't going to change any of that for someone already making poor financial decisions. If you immediately go out and buy some ridiculous mansion and a bunch of sports cars you'll quickly find yourself without any money again, trying desperately to afford all of those new toys. Though I suppose that is exactly the kind of idiot who plays the lottery to begin with.

As a spouse to a public school teacher and a volunteer in said underfunded schools, the schools would be better served if you sent them the $1 (or more) directly. Then all the other hands aren't skimming off the top.

We gave two Costco cubes of Kleenex as a Christmas gift to our school. You wouldn't believe the effusive thanks we got. Donate a box of printer paper and you'll be worshiped for a month.

(Yes, I bought a lottery ticket yesterday anyway. No, I still have to go to work on Monday.)

If you still had 98.46% of your money at the end of 10 years you would be significantly ahead of where you'd be if you'd been putting the money in a lottery.

I read this article back in December in Time [time.com] which said that had you redirected your lottery spending to stocks over the 10 years ending December 2010, your annualized return would have amounted to -1.54%, according to Standard & Poor's.

Astounding. If you pick the worst possible ten year period in stock market investing in the modern era, spanning from a stock bubble to a post-crash lull, during a period of unprecedentedly reckless public spending, you can actually observe a loss (as long as you adjust for inflation). :)