Topic: Lottery is a poor man's tax - page 3. (Read 643 times)

A professor of mine who held (hedl) a chair in economics knew a man (I can't remember whether he was statistician or mathematician) who used to say that he knew better than anyone else he knew the extent of the probability of winning the lottery, and he was probably right.

Even if he understood better than any of us the abstract implications of such a minimal chance, he used to say that the savviest choice was to play: there is no other thing that you can buy for $1 with the potential to give you such a huge excitement.

The problem is that some people spend too much money on it, while just a little bit makes almost the same impression of hope.

Considering the amount that you can win on Lottery, of course people will play more to increase their chances of winning, unfortunately those people don’t know how to know the probability to win on lotto and this is also why the government is making them fool literally, and taking advantage against them to collect more money. Though I support their Charity works but hopefully, bettors will not literally depend on this because hard works always pays off.

lotto did not make any promises but people are the ones that assumed it . infact lotto is still questionable to some if this is really legit or its only a way to milk people but not totally milk because its said that government based lotto are being tax or can go to the charity . i hope that was true and they dont lie when they say that  . people in any status make bets on lotto not just the poor , comparing lotto to astraunut is new to me but its not fair because anyone can be an astraunut  while winning in lotto is close to impossible.  no mathetmatician can make a combination but i agree that buying all the possible combination can increase your win chance

That's one way at looking at it, and I do agree with it. At the least, the government is being honest somewhat on their lotteries, given that from time to time they are advising the public to gamble responsibly.

On the taxation part, I do agree since most government-run lotteries are still subject to tax, which takes a lot of cut from the winnings too. There had been a documentary wherein lottery winners were interviewed about their huge winnings. It was a surreal experience, sure, but the tax that they impose on such wins is just insane, too. Some other times, they also suggest hiring a legal adviser from their public offices to 'handle' such funds, which then bills them a huge sum for a single piece of advice. I mean, financial advisers are good and all especially in making a financial decision, but from the public offices? No.

The promise of a good life after winning the lottery is what gets poor people hooked to playing the lottery. I have known a lot of people 'taking care' of certain numbers for decades and still hasn't won a single cent, and have even told them had they saved those few $ per bet, they would have gotten somewhere else now.

Everyone will definitely hope to win a lottery, this is a natural thing because whatever prizes we get can be used as additional income. The problem is when it becomes a habit and costs a lot of money to pursue the opportunity. What is wrong is not in the habit but using a lot of money to get a chance to win the lottery so that the habit becomes bad.

The chance to win the lottery is always related to luck, although buying many combinations can increase the odds, but if we are not lucky then we could still lose.

First gambling is Luck based mostly so whats the difference between playing in Slots and betting in lottery ?at least in lottery there is only 2-3 draws a week (in my country) so it is more cheaper than playing in casino either Online or in real.

there is a person who tries to beat lottery in the past but in the end?they still the loser.
Nope all gambling institution in my country has been taxed so even the richest person is entitled in taxation by all means.

You forgot to mention the true appeal of a lottery and state lottery for example which is the cost of a ticket.Usually varies in developed countries between 1-3 Eur or Usd and in third world countries to 1 Usd max.These are amounts anyone can afford even those hanging near the poverty line as even the one with the minimum wage can decide to spend 5 usd on tickets every week and rely on luck.That is what makes lottery a very lucrative form of gambling even for people who only play lottery and are not real gamblers.

That sounds about right.

Gambling in general is a way to tax people.  Because mathematically the house has to make profits to stay afloat while the players have to lose money.

Sometimes you pay your taxes directly to the government, sometimes you pay the casino and the casino pays the government.

Some smart people find ways to trick the casinos (arbitrage betting, value betting etc) but without a surprise, casinos ban them right away.

I have a negative attitude to state lotteries, as I do not believe in the integrity of such lotteries. In my opinion, more transparency is needed to ensure the necessary level of trust. This could be achieved using a blockchain, but my state is unlikely to do it.

I totally agree with the idea that lottery is a poor man's tax, but when you're in that position and desperate - it looks like a way out. The odds against you are so astronomical that you are effectively wasting money if you do this form of betting on a regular basis. There will always be a winner, but you'll find that lottery operators are constantly tweaking the numbers and it is rarely to favor the people buying tickets.

The pros and cons depend on how addicted the player. If they only spent like $10 per month, it's really not a big deal for the hope of getting rich. People need hope!
The cons start when they spent more and have foolish expectations.

With or without governments, lottery operators will still do their business as usual. Why not run and make it a source of government revenue?

I would only buy one ticket per round. If I'm lucky, then I'm lucky no matter how many tickets I have.

Most notorious gambling game in terms of getting their money .
Since it only needs a small amount of money to make a bet, even an Average Joe can bet in lottery and even a poor person can bet on it too.

I can't really say that the government-owned lottery is their way to scam people since our lottery here are helping other poor people. I don't know in other government-owned lotteries in different countries though. Although it is already in my mind that government = corrupt, I can't say 100% that they are scamming people thru lottery.

I'm not playing TBH and I never tried it in my whole life. Once a week is enough maybe for me. I'm not focusing too much on things that will not give me benefit if I give some time, money and effort into it like gambling.

The funny thing is that where most lottery is sold is in the poorest neighborhoods.

I also put it in another thread. This is a lottery simulator:

https://www.cuandomevaatocar.com/en/

If you hit "start" you can see the ruin that is playing the lottery. It is clearly EV negative.

The only good thing about it is that if you hit the jackpot, it can change your life. But this is so unlikely that it's almost impossible.

Although I very occasionally play. Always when I am offered to play halfway between friends. Mostly because of the FOMO.

Are you suggesting that Lottery is gambling? If that is what you're suggesting then you could aswell be saying that countries that ban gambling but allow lottery or lottery-like betting games/competitions still allow gambling?

  Lottery bets should simply be seen as a way a people or community can randomly redistribute their small occasional contributions, pooled-fund, pooled-valuables, more responsibilities etc to their lucky members.
I think the current model I'm familiar with could be improved or made in a way that more members/winners get the distributed funds/things.


Well, I have bet on lottery before, probably one or  few times when I was kid/teen. We bet with little amount we could afford to lose, I don't consider that gambling. Many years ago, I was quite lucky in a  lottery-kind of competition that does not involve people betting directly with money... but I didn't scale through the final round. The lucky ones went through. I would not have complained or felt bad then if I didn't spend too much for ticket. I couldn't afford the ticket fee, but I could not afford to stop because I was already in the middle of the competition. This was something you would think was free lottery but they "charge" you huge amount in the middle of the competition. That is a clear gambling in betting/lottery space... It appears like free lottery/betting but with huge hidden ticket fee i couldn't afford.

Being a mathematician doesn't help increase the odds of winning - because it's a lottery. All that you can do is to maximise your share of any jackpot by picking numbers that other people don't pick.

Yes, I think so. Unless all proceeds from lottery ticket sales (minus small admin costs) are fed back into supporting the poor, then it's definitely exploitative. It's selling a dream, and a way out, but taking care not to emphasise just how phenomenally unlikely you are to win.

The thing is, it's always for poor people that's the perception, considering if they won it's a guaranteed unexpected wealthy lifestyle. It's called poor man's tax since most of the people that buying those tickets comes from low earner individuals. Besides, if there were high rollers or rich that plays the lottery will it be still called a poor man's tax?

I couldn't say that it is really a scum way to tax the people since it's still from the government and they spend it as well to health, charities and so on and I'm seeing it's for the good cause in the long run.

Not all lottery own by the government , but hell yeah they are recieving large portion of taxes in lottery.

They are betting in lottery hoping to make their self millionaire if they win, there is nothing wrong with that. the only bad thing is that the others did this and think that as an investment where they can win a lot if they continue betting, they are  dreaming to win  without noticing how much money  they already use to  gambled .

Well, to be fair, anyone thinking that lottery money will sustain a good life for themselves is just dreaming. Out of all the people who won a lottery, none of them could keep living a luxury life for long because they have no income source as large as the lottery money they won. So what usually happens is that the money finishes; they can’t pay for their luxury expenses and these people end up becoming bankrupt.  

Say you won $1 million, for example. A luxury sports car costs about $100K or $200K, resorts and estates go for several hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lottery money will be finished just from buying these two items if not more stuff.

As I like to say, $100K you make a month is better than $1 million you win once.

I had remembered one of my colleagues says that the winning combination number of a lottery can be predicted by solving its probability.
I had just think how could be that happen where for me the combination of winning number were rambled and it was really hard to figured out by just solving the probability. To cut the story short, i am not convinced by this method. So basically i didn't make any bets in lottery, i feel that i am just wasted my money but the mere fact that if you become the winner a million prizes are waiting but then it didn't convinced me, i'd still want to worked hard for the money than hoping to win in a lottery.

I am not saying it will make you win per se, what I was saying there is that you have an edge if you know the statistics to predict the result. Buying all possible combination can win you profits especially some lottery have conditions that can net you some break even like 3 of your number matched the winning number.

That is a dangerous attitude towards finances, saying that it does not cost a lot when buying lottery tickets is nothing compared to the travel time you wasted to buy the lottery ticket and if you add up the accumulated money you spent on it and other people, you will be surprised that it is not a big deal.