>I've personally never met someone that played the lottery that thought they had tremendous odds, or otherwise failed to understand the nature of the lottery.

>I've personally never met someone that played the lottery that thought they had tremendous odds, or otherwise failed to understand the nature of the lottery. This is besides the point. Even if you believe it's not the government's responsibility to improve the lives of the poor, I think we can all agree that the government has no business actively making the lives of the poor worse, which is what the lottery does. It uses the public's trust of the state to promote a get-rich-quick scheme that a.) people have almost zero chance of winning and b.) will most likely not even improve their lives past the first few years even if they do win. The fraud being committed is the state using its advertising and trust to convince people that they could be a winner, when they basically can't. Whether people 'understand the odds' is irrelevant. The government is convincing people to divert what little money they have into a bottomless pit.