Does the lottery do more harm than good?
November 30, 2012
By: Nicholas Napier
Hundreds wait in line for their slim chance at winning millions.
Credits: controlyourcash.com
Following the Powerball drawing last Wednesday, November 28, all media coverage focused on the two, small town winners of the more than $500,000,000 prize. But for every lottery winner, there are literally millions of losers, some of whom regularly spend their hard earned money on dozens, or even hundreds of tickets. Before even delving into the horrors of gambling addiction, the horrors of bad odds cannot be ignored. You don’t have to be a statistician to see that 1 in 175 million, which were the chances of winning the most recent Powerball drawing, are not odds you would want to bet on. In fact, the odds of getting struck by lighting in a lifetime are about 1 in 10,000, so you are 20,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery. Those odds are pretty shocking, no pun intended.
How the lottery is presented
Aside from the inconceivable odds of winning, there is also the issue of the message sent by the lottery. Many skeptics insist that these nearly impossible dreams of winning millions with a ticket are presented as being much more likely than they actually are. Various news outlets and TV shows have focused on the lottery winners and how their lives have changed, but there are no shows for the millions of non-winners, especially of the people who actually need that money that they’re spending on gambling in the lottery.
Potential Alternatives
Some believe that the money raised by state governments to market and fund the lottery would be better spent on programs that get people jobs and endorse the value of hard work. Maybe if a statistics class explaining exactly how close to impossible it is that any individual will ever win were required before purchasing a lottery ticket, then less would participate. Everyone knows the person who feels more certain they’ll win if they spend more money on buying a lot of tickets. If customers who spent $50 on lottery tickets in a mathematically-futile attempt to increase their odds had any idea of the better options that were out there for that money, perhaps they would make meaningful investments that might not have a chance of paying off immediately, but would definitely pay off overtime
http://www.examiner.com/article/does-the-lottery-do-more-harm-than-good.
Following the Powerball drawing last Wednesday, November 28, all media coverage focused on the two, small town winners of the more than $500,000,000 prize. But for every lottery winner, there are literally millions of losers, some of whom regularly spend their hard earned money on dozens, or even hundreds of tickets. Before even delving into the horrors of gambling addiction, the horrors of bad odds cannot be ignored. You don’t have to be a statistician to see that 1 in 175 million, which were the chances of winning the most recent Powerball drawing, are not odds you would want to bet on. In fact, the odds of getting struck by lighting in a lifetime are about 1 in 10,000, so you are 20,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery. Those odds are pretty shocking, no pun intended.
How the lottery is presented
Aside from the inconceivable odds of winning, there is also the issue of the message sent by the lottery. Many skeptics insist that these nearly impossible dreams of winning millions with a ticket are presented as being much more likely than they actually are. Various news outlets and TV shows have focused on the lottery winners and how their lives have changed, but there are no shows for the millions of non-winners, especially of the people who actually need that money that they’re spending on gambling in the lottery.
Potential Alternatives
Some believe that the money raised by state governments to market and fund the lottery would be better spent on programs that get people jobs and endorse the value of hard work. Maybe if a statistics class explaining exactly how close to impossible it is that any individual will ever win were required before purchasing a lottery ticket, then less would participate. Everyone knows the person who feels more certain they’ll win if they spend more money on buying a lot of tickets. If customers who spent $50 on lottery tickets in a mathematically-futile attempt to increase their odds had any idea of the better options that were out there for that money, perhaps they would make meaningful investments that might not have a chance of paying off immediately, but would definitely pay off overtime
http://www.examiner.com/article/does-the-lottery-do-more-harm-than-good.
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