Lotteries, Making You Rich Or Making You Poorer?
Seems to me that lotteries are a great idea NLA and at the same time a terrible idea. The big prize lotteries such as the classic six-ball lotto or the real blockbusters like Powerball and Mega Millions offer the chance to millions of people of winning life-changing huge prizes. Of course the odds against this happening are astronomical but the chance is there. There is no real justification for buying more than one ticket. It's just a case of being "in it to win it". For many people (most of us) this is the only chance they will ever get of becoming super-rich. On the other hand some lottery games are just a way of making poor people even poorer. So why are some lotteries a terrible idea? I have a problem with the flood of smaller daily pools and scratch cards. Take a typical pick 3 where the prizes are fixed so no opportunities created by rollovers. Typically the odds against winning are 1000 to 1 yet the top prize is $500. This means that you can play these lotteries...