June 10, 2008Lottery parts fools from their money
I think he's on to something here. Continuing to sell scratch tickets when only the little prizes are left is like selling a Pick 3 ticket with yesterday's date. True, customers can with a little digging find out how many of each prize remains for each ticket, but that information isn't available at the store counter. Take particular note of this disclaimer: "Chances of winning are established at the time of printing. Number of winning tickets remaining will change as prizes are won or additional tickets are produced." Additional tickets are produced? Of what? Duds? Keep in mind, folks, the house always wins. |
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We had a discussion this morning about the Washington and Lee University associate professor 
Comments
[June 10, 2008 5:37 PM]
Other JohnI've always wondered about the scratchers in that regard so it's nice to see someone actually challenging the lotto on it. Lotteries are little more than taxes on people who are bad at math. They also disproportionately affect lower income and less educated people in society. I've seen numerous studies showing that people with less education and lower incomes spend not only more money on lotto tickets in terms of a percentage of their incomes...but in many cases they also spend more in total dollars on lotto tickets than people with higher educations and incomes. Part of it can be traced to a lot of people viewing the lottery as their retirement plan...which sadly hardly ever pays out to most avid lotto players. A little investment of the lotto spending could yield far higher returns than paltry lotto winnings for probably 99% of folks. Sadly though, such simple economics is not taught to the majority of people nowadays.