My father has always taught me, since I was young, that the state lottery is simply a tax on people who have never been taught probability or statistics. He use

My father has always taught me, since I was young, that the state lottery is simply a tax on people who have never been taught probability or statistics. He used that as a lesson when he was teaching me about probability and compound interest :) Obviously if you win, you win big, but overall, I tend to strongly agree with him. It is a tax on those who don't think about probability, except for the people who gamed the system and won: https://slice.mit.edu/2012/08/14/winning-the-lottery/ https://slice.mit.edu/2012/08/14/winning-the-lottery/ Gaming it is pure genius.