There’s nothing quite like winning the lottery. Just thinking about it can inspire fantasies of luxury vacations, designer clothes, and new cars. It can also rewrite one’s life, paying off debt and mortgages, or funding kids’ education. But, of course, the money means nothing unless you actually win. And winning isn’t easy. In fact, lottery winners often find themselves in even worse financial condition than before. That’s because the game, in addition to announcing their victory, requires them to sign their name and contact their state’s lottery commission. And, according to a recent study, people who play the lottery more frequently tend to spend more than those who play less often.
While this is bad for the average person who plays the lottery, it’s especially harmful to those with low incomes and those suffering from gambling addiction. Studies have shown that lottery sales and winnings are disproportionately concentrated in poor neighborhoods, and Vox reports that lottery playing tends to skew toward lower-income people and minorities. The problem with this is that states, whose coffers swell thanks to ticket sales and jackpots, are relying on a small group of super users for most of their revenue. In fact, as a recent Pew report points out, most of the lottery’s profits come from just 10% of the population.
This is partly because, as the HuffPost reports, savvy players buy large numbers of tickets, sometimes thousands at a time, to increase their chances of winning. They know that the expected value of their ticket purchase is low, but they can’t stop themselves from buying in bulk. It’s a little like how, when a team is down with two minutes left in the game, they start fouling their opponents. It’s a desperate move, but it might pay off.
Lottery players can also fall victim to a form of mental sleight of hand. It’s called the “educated fool” effect, and it happens when you confuse partial truth with total wisdom. In the case of lottery, this is when you rely on “expected value,” which distills a complex ticket’s multiple prizes and probabilities down to a single number. The educated fool mistakenly believes this is wisdom, but it’s really just a form of self-delusion.
Another common ploy is to sway players by offering products that they might be familiar with. This can take the form of a branded scratch card featuring a well-known actor, sports team or cartoon character, for example. It’s why so many games are paired with brand-name merchandise. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, organized a series of lottery games in colonial America to raise money for cannons and other war equipment. George Washington, meanwhile, managed the Mountain Road Lottery in 1768, which offered land and slaves as prizes.