> There's a difference between buying hope, and decreasing the quality of what you do have significantly
You are making the same category error that the parent is talking about. It’s not a rational risk/reward calculation.
It’s more like a compulsion / addiction to the soothing / hopeful feeling that people feel for a few minutes when they think about the problems in their life that would be alleviated by winning.
Remember that the lottery is effectively the same game that used to be called “running numbers” when mob families ran it in the 20th century. The government though encouraging gambling addiction at the time was not worth the social costs. Now those costs are apparently the fault of the addict / family and not the government/ lottery contractor.
And I feel you're making the same category error that I was responding to, that is to say it may not be a rational/risk reward calculation, but people who indulge in a small bit of irrationality are having fun and people who indulge in large bits of irrationality significantly damaging their already damaged finances have a problem.
>Remember that the lottery is effectively the same game
I believe running the numbers was guaranteed never to pay out significantly because it was rigged, the lottery is just statistically against you.
> the lottery is just statistically against you
The lottery is not legal in all 50 states. IIRC Alabama still considers the lottery to be morally problematic, which is the same reason it was not legal during the “running numbers” days.