"Jay Honeck" writes:

From my perspective, the lottery is just a "stupid tax" that I am
not required to pay. However, many others do...

That's my perspective, too.

Yet, today, for some reason, Mary and I blew a $5 bill on FIVE (count 'em --
FIVE!) Powerball tickets!

That's five more than we've ever bought before! (We actually had to ask
the clerk how to play the lottery. The people in line were incredulous...)

I feel so, so, I don't know....*stupid*...

:-)

I've called it "paying my stupidity tax" quite often myself.

Let me offer for your possible use my rationalizaton: While, in
strictly *financial* terms it's a bad bet, that's not what actually
matters. In some arbitrary measure of personal "utility", an
occasional dollar spent on a lottery ticket is a complete triviality,
it doesn't constrain any other portion of my life at all. However,
winning 340 million dollars would completely transform some segments
of my life (in ways I think would be for the better), a great increase
in utility. Hence buying a lotter ticket is risking "nothing" to
potentially (very low probability) gain a great deal -- clearly a
rational decision.

Hope that helps!
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
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