> "It's difficult even saying that with all the people that I know behind me that I hurt." It is interesting to think about who he considers he hurt. The potential winners who relied on lottery winning to secure a future for their families? The lottery workers? He is a criminal surely, but isn't the whole lottery system a tax on lack of education and it just gives false hope to people and encourages gambling. He redu…
While I support the idea that lottery and gambling is for 'entertainment purposes only', if one never buys into the lottery, they can never obtain the winnings. Buying exactly one ticket per drawing at least places one in the pool of potential winners, despite the odds being rather long. Although the expected value is still minuscule, it's an unquantifiable improvement (since we can't divide by zero). And before you…
The lottery though is not hurting a middle class programmer who buys a ticket for fun, it is hurting the poor who possibly don't realize how unlikely it for them to win and _time_ and money spend on the lottery might be better used for something else.
It is not unlike the liquor stores and payday loans popping up in more poorer areas of town. From a cold rational point of view one can say "ok, if they rely on the lottery to give them hope, they are just as likely to spend that money on drugs or alcohol" and indeed they might however it doesn't mean the states should encourage that and act in a predatory manner towards them.