John Oliver Plays (With) the Lottery

Americans spent $68 billion playing the lottery last year, more than they spent on movie tickets, music, professional sports, video games and porn combined.. You can think of state lotteries as a tax on the dreams of the poor, since the poor spend more on these state-sponsored gambling schemes than more well-off people. Lottery ads sell hope, but the odds of winning are hopeless (1 in 176 million).

States sold the lottery concept to voters by saying the money earned would go to good causes like education, but it doesn’t, it merely displaces existing funding instead of supplementing it, so school budgets are flat or reduced.

Lottery winners are notoriously bad with their money. Hey, if they were good with money, would they play the freakin’ lottery in the first place?

John Oliver recently analyzed the lottery on his television program:

Playing the Lottery

“To grasp how unlikely it was for Gloria C. MacKenzie, an 84-year-old Florida widow, to have won the $590 million Powerball lottery in May, Robert Williams, a professor of health sciences at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, offers this scenario: head down to your local convenience store, slap $2 on the counter, and fill out a six-numbered Powerball ticket. It will take you about 10 seconds. To get your chance of winning down to a coin toss, or 50 percent, you will need to spend 12 hours a day, every day, filling out tickets for the next 55 years. It’s going be expensive. You will have to plunk down your $2 at least 86 million times.“

More:

“Why We Keep Playing the Lottery,” Adam Piore, Nautilus

____________

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-h8s

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Low-Power Powerball

“Powerball at an estimated $600 million as jackpot continues to grow,” AP via Fox News

“Got THE ticket for tonight’s big Powerball drawing?,” CNN

Odds of winning: 1 in 175.2 million.

Odds of becoming president: 1 in 43,000,000.

Odds of being struck by lightning this year: 1 in 700,000.

The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math, according to Ambrose Bierce, but it’s worse than that. It’s a tax on the hopes and dreams of the poor. The only way lottery corporations get away with it is by giving a kickback to state governments, a small cut of their vast profits.

UPDATE:

“$590M-plus Powerball: 1 winning ticket sold in Florida,” Barbara Rodriguez, AP via Boston Globe

__________________

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-gGy

Image (“Investment Portfolio of the Working American”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Mega Millions Economic Stimulus

Many American invested in securities that matured last night. Mega Millions Lottery tickets.

Expected payout: $640 million

Total invested: $1.5 billion

Winning numbers: 2-4-23-38-48 Mega Ball 23

Chances of winning: 1 in 176 million

You are 50 times more likely to get struck by lightning, 8,000 times more likely to be murdered, 20,000 times more likely to die in a car crash.

Lotteries: The tax on the dreams of the poor.

_________________________

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-cTB

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine