101–108 of 108 posts
I won the UK National Lottery jackpot as part of a syndicate. Two years later, I won it again on my own. The wins have had two effects on how I evaluate odds: first, so-called 'remote' probabilities I once found reassuring – the odds of being hit by lightning in your lifetime is 1 in 10,000 or the chances of being killed in a train crash are 1 in 500,000 – no longer have a calming effect. This can make me both nervou…
Nice calculation, but it doesn't contradict the 'rational' argument at all. Slightly disappointing: looking at the title and first paragraph I expected some weird statistical wizardry on why the calculation of expected values is fundamentally flawed somehow. (Which would be surprising, given that it's an important mathematical tool in quantum mechanics (even though the formalism there is different).) Also, why pay fo…
He does contradict the "rational" argument that you should only factor in money when doing your expected value calculations. > Imagination is >free I guess he gets more entertainment out of knowing that what he is imagining has a chance of becoming a reality.
Kari Enqvist, a professor of cosmology, said something very insightful in an interview about gambling in general: "Insurances yield a peace of mind and lotteries yield dreams, the values of which cannot be measured in mere terms of probabilities or money." In my view, lottery tickets are not meant to be rationally justifiable, nor should they be required to be. Yet, I don't fancy the idea of committing to such vain p…
Also, in Finland the state lottery redistributes the profit to good use. By law the arts get 38.5%, sports 25%, science 17.5% and youth work 9%. 10% goes to whatever the Ministry of Education decides that year. Whenever I play lottery I think I'm partly giving money to charity and partly buying a dream.
He also forgot about paying taxes in case of winning lottery.
Not sure why he cannot dream about getting rich without playing lottery.
Looking back, there seems to be a correlation between the times in my life when I've bought lottery tickets, and the times in my life when I've felt hopeless. If I ever feel trapped by circumstances, depressed, lost, or I don't have optimism for the future, the less logical part of my brain will somehow rationalise the remote chance of winning millions as a perfectly justified excuse for buying a ticket. The author o…
Evolution is often all-or-nothing --- no one produces "half a child". This is especially true of men, if you believe the 40-80 figure [1]: 40% of men have descendants vs 80% for women. We are the descendants of A) successful people [2] and B) unsuccessful people who took a big gamble (winning the lottery; robbing a bank; crossing the ocean to find better opportunities) that made them wealthy enough to reproduce. [1]…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well it mentions why he 'says' he buys tickets. > The standard argument of people who think that lotto is for suckers is based on expected return. They are taught at school that a rational investment is one with an expected value greater than the price paid. I have some problems with this argument, but I’ve never really calculated it before, so let us consider the numbers. // This para to me says he's not really look…
You seem to be projecting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well it mentions why he 'says' he buys tickets. > The standard argument of people who think that lotto is for suckers is based on expected return. They are taught at school that a rational investment is one with an expected value greater than the price paid. I have some problems with this argument, but I’ve never really calculated it before, so let us consider the numbers. // This para to me says he's not really look…
You must not have got to the end of the article? He doesn't need to have ever figured out the odds before when he was always just buying it for the entertainment value. >I think of it as a discretionary entertainment spend. I get literally hours of enjoyment from fantasizing what I’d do if I won.
I'm not sure which part you're responding to there.
If it's that he states the reason as you quote? A point being that he was lured to buy tickets by some other more base desire, yes perhaps an irrational feeling that he would win, but that for a person in his position the admittance of that could be difficult, a personal cost of face.
Kinda like the old saying you buy Penthouse for the articles?
Pure speculation but then his side is self-promoted anecdote so I reckon it's all even. Just shooting my mouth off though probably.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm. Most people collect on insurance for very-sustainable costs - drug benefits, dental for checkups, routine visits to the doctor. Where do those fit into this argument? Personally, I would like insurance that pays only for large expenses. I know its a sucker game to pay insurance; since the insurance companies profit I must be losing. But 'group insurance' is not something I can change.
When you buy catastrophic insurance it usually comes with free preventative care, which benefits the insurer as well as the insured. You can often get a lower premium for a higher deductible, and everyone who knows how to multiply does this.