3 ms·
$80 BILLION a year in lottery spending, that was shocking to me. Only 30 some countries have bigger yearly budgets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coun
by onetimemanytime 7y ago
$80 BILLION a year in lottery spending, that was shocking to me. Only 30 some countries have bigger yearly budgets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
- smcl 7y agoRemember that you can look at a lot of data on the US like this and come up with seemingly shocking figures, simply because of the huge population of the USA and their higher than average disposable income. I bet if you looked at other things like total amount spent on other optional/nonessential items - chewing gum or fabric softener, for example - you'd end up with a dollar value in excess of what many governments spend :-)
- onetimemanytime 7y agoOh, I know. Our GDP does it. If US can spend $80 Billion on lottery tickets imagine what we can spend to win a war. Makes you think more than twice before poking the bear.
- rzzzt 7y agoThe chewing gum market is a bit smaller (but impressive nonetheless), 110-ish countries have revenues comparable to sales in North America: https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/13098-chewing-gum-sales-estimated-to-hit-4-billion-in-2018 https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/13098-chewing-gum-... https://www.statista.com/topics/1841/chewing-gum/ https://www.statista.com/topics/1841/chewing-gum/
- onion2k 7y agoIt's very common for people who win small prizes to 'reinvest' their winnings though. Someone who spends $5 and wins $25 might then just buy $25 of tickets with that win. If they're playing online that money never really exists - it's just an account balance in a database going up and down.
- chrshawkes 7y agoSlightly more than spent on Food Stamps I believe? Is there a correlation?