Megabucks

        I’ve changed my mind about lottery tickets. The last lottery ticket I bought was in 1977, and since then, if asked, and perhaps more frequently without being asked I have opined/pontificated that the lottery is a tax on the poor and a fool’s game.

        Last week the Megabucks lottery reached $650 Million, and tickets were selling around the country at the rate of 1 million tickets an hour.  On TV, after the news anchors speculated on whether they would quit their jobs if they won,  a parade of mathematicians spoke about the odds, the house’s take and the comparative advantages of either going to Las Vegas or betting on penny stocks.  I had just finished Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and  Slow and could have made the argument myself.  Buying lottery tickets is wholly irrational.

           At our Monday staff meeting it turned out that almost everyone had played Megabucks.  At first I thought they were just nuts, but as the discussion evolved it was something different.  One guy went to the store with his teenage son who is not old enough to buy a ticket, and they spent the trip together discussing what numbers to pick.  Another guy had a family fantasy discussion about what they would do with their winnings. 

         It became clear that winning was really secondary.  The ticket is a $1 admission to fantasy.  No one had a regret about the dollar because the trip with the teenager and the family fantasy time were worth well more than a dollar.  Playing the game was the cheapest fun since a bottle of Ripple.

           I can not say if most people who play Megabucks can afford it or do it in some desperate need to win, and I can say that it is still a tax on poor people and should be abolished immediately, but the next time Megabucks goes over $300 Million – count me in!