<p>I want my $$$ back.</p>
<p>[news:</a> Poor spend more of income on lottery than wealthy, study shows](<a href=“captimes.com | The Capital Times: Madison WI News”>captimes.com | The Capital Times: Madison WI News)</p>
<p>Depends on what their smoking, razor…</p>
<p>OK, stop your 60’s flashback, remembering fondly those days on the road in a van with shag carpeting, following the Grateful Dead! </p>
<p>What I meant to say was along the lines of: “well, my Monte Cristos are $7 a pop. But worth every penny…”</p>
<p>Actually, there’s a psychological reason for this. I saw it on a science blog lol. Let me find it.</p>
<p>[Psychology</a> of Poverty: Why Poor People Buy Lottery Tickets](<a href=“http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/psychology_of_poverty_why_poor_people_buy_lottery_tickets]Psychology”>Psychology Of Poverty: Why Poor People Buy Lottery Tickets | Science 2.0)</p>
<p>I don’t dispute the study but I was astounded when a colleague of mine (not poor) indicated to me that he actually planned to win the lottery. It wasn’t that he ‘wanted’ to win but that he ‘expected’ to win and would get seriously upset if he didn’t win each week. He actually planned to win and was counting on it to be his retirement. He wasn’t saying it in jest. To increase his odds he’d buy a lot of tickets each time. I explained to him that if he buys a 100 tickets he just improved his odds of hitting the big one from something like 1 in 17 million to 100 in 17 million - still minuscule. He didn’t want to hear of it.</p>
<p>I don’t play the lottery but I did just spend $150 on a raffle ticket. It was to win a $1.4 million house not far from here plus they had some lesser prizes. I actually had a 1 in 100 chance of winning something which isn’t bad as far as raffles go. I lost, of course, but it doesn’t matter to me because the money went to the Ronald McDonald House charity. I tried in the past to win an old Shelby Mustang from them but lost that one too. Oh well.</p>
<p>This is the truth: For whatever it is worth, I know someone who actually won the lottery and won 1 million dollars. It was years ago btw (>30 years ago, so 1 million was worth a bit more than it is today). It did not change their life in terms of work, but improved the quality of their lives. Both of their children were extremely bright and this allowed them to both attend ivies for their undergraduate educations, and then continue onto graduate school. The wife did not work outside the home. They were able to take a few fantastic vacations. They never made home improvements, and they still live in their first very modest house. I know that they quietly invested some of it, and I guess they are using it to live on in their retirement. I guess that they are both in their 80s at this point.</p>
<p>Spend a Friday or Saturday night, sometime around 1AM-ish, on a riverboat casino one time (don’t ask, long story). A “little different” than the crowds hanging out at the huge Vegas resorts. VEEERY depressing to watch.</p>
<p>use a different form of chance:
real estate
real estate loans and leveraging
securities: Stock and Bonds
Hedge funds.
Mutual Funds
IRA, 401k, 529, EE Bonds, UGMA, Savings Accounts,
Ivy League Schools, Schools that cost more than the reasonable ability to repay
W’s Wars
W’s overall policies
Procreation…</p>
<p>The bets that we have made in all the above have not been pretty. How are your bets?</p>
<p>The State Lottery: a tax on the mathematically challenged.</p>
<p>LP, the majority of the issues you mention above are Long Term Risks, which over the long term have turned out rather well. Recent events are bumps in the road, not the end of days… </p>
<p>Which would you rather do, invest a dollar a day in a stock for thenext 30 years, or a dollar a day in a lottery ticket over the next 30 years?</p>
<p>^ You and I are of the near the same age. The Long Term Risks have in the past have done rather well, but the Long Term Assumptions have also spelled some very disturbing short term and long lasting problems. I personally do not have that many Long Term Years. </p>
<p>The financial institutions, Government, pundits and fortune tellers, on the long term, Know as much as you and I. On the short term, they are probably worse in prediction and implementation.</p>
<p>^^ Agreed. But I’d still rather place my bets on a long term financial plan that combines investments in 401Ks and mutual funds than rely on the impossible instant dream of a lottery ticket.</p>
<p>And I think that is also part ofthe problem. Most of pop culture is centerd today on instant gratification than actual long term planning. Admit it: how many of you here in CC land waited in line for the “cool new I-phone”, mostly because it was thecool new must have gadget. I laugh when I walked by those display cases a few months later and the prices were half of what they were durign the “frenzy to have one”.</p>
<p>Lottery ticket = a chance for instant gratification.</p>
<p>Long term investing = smarter, but who wants to wait 40 years?</p>
<p>Lottery tickets = $1 - $100 bet. It is the only game available to this group.
Retirement Investments = $0 - $n00,000 bet. Is not the only game played. </p>
<p>The numbers that my brother works with is in the plus nine figures. I will have the pleasure in August in telling him, I told you so.</p>
<p>For the poor and lottery, so what. They pay neither taxes or buy those things that move the economy, other than keeping the US in a negative trade deficit and oil comsumption.</p>
<p>I think they buy a fair amount of FOOD. And electricity, and phone, and cable, and beer, and lots of other little crap made in the good old USA.</p>
<p>Government sponsored “Lotteries” have always been a voluntary tax on the poor. Their propose is to take advantage of the poorest amongst us and are also a most devious and practical example of the exploitation of human nature. And the proceeds always go to fund the very good salaries and benefits of those who the government proclaims to be most noble and thus deserving. </p>
<p>If you don’t realize that, you’re deceiving yourself.</p>
<p>The poor do pay in taxes, my bad. For Washington’s lottery, ~38.5% tax rate (money not returned to the players) . </p>
<p>[Table</a> GT14: Lottery Revenues](<a href=“http://www.ofm.wa.gov/databook/finance/gt14.asp]Table”>http://www.ofm.wa.gov/databook/finance/gt14.asp)</p>
<p><a href=“http://walottery.com/docs/pdfs/CAFR07_Statistics.pdf[/url]”>App - Washington's Lottery;
interesting statistics for WA. Greatest predictor for playing Washington’s Lottery is be a HS graduate. Best predictor for not playing is to Not have a HS degree and have a degree other than HS.</p>
<p>I once heard an economist on the radio describe state lotteries as a tax on the stupid. (Ouch.) I’ve also read that playing the lottery stimulates those endorphins that runners get, so I consider it a cheap high, not addictive in my case. </p>
<p>Then there’s this: someone in my workplace collects $5 per week from anyone interested in playing. I occasionally win a few dollars (never more than $15, sometimes $1 but usually nothing) on a scratch off ticket. At the same time, I’ve been ‘deferring compensation’, 3% of my salary, since I began the job over a year ago. I’ve lost money there, too - it was invested in funds that have lost value. I may be stupid for buying lottery tickets, but I get a cheap thrill and it’s a ‘team building’ exercise of sorts. I never buy tickets on my own, I wouldn’t know how to do it (am sure I could learn, no interest.) I just feel sad and powerless about the deferred compensation.</p>
<p>Yes, if you can afford it and consider it entertainment–which I do all gambling-there is nothing much wrong with it as it raises money for common goods. In many states the Lottery is used to fund education.</p>
<p>in the better state than yours, Oregon, we have or had a Constitutional provision that outlaws gambling (not sure if it still on the active). We allow games of chance because, the payoff is in “Entertainment” by way of script which just happens to convertible to currency to purchase more “entertainment”</p>
<p>Look at your lottery ticket, do you see the fine print, "not for gambling, for entertainment purposes only ". I don’t pay to see movies because I think its gambling. :)</p>