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I just wonder, do you have to think very high about yourself to play such a game and enjoy it? Or very low? I just can not imagine myself feeling good about thi

I just wonder, do you have to think very high about yourself to play such a game and enjoy it? Or very low? I just can not imagine myself feeling good about this. Of course, the feeling dumbs a bit: compare the feelings you had after using your first illegally copied floppy disk or mp3 track and the later ones, but still.

barking 7y ago
I'd enjoy it very much and not feel bad at all.
chrismcb 7y ago
Why would you feel bad? What woukd you have down that was wrong? You aren't taking money from anyone else.
- tantalor 7y ago
  You are taking money from the prize pool, i.e. payouts for future winners.
  - chrismcb 7y ago
    You, and everyone else. That is the rule of the game. You aren't doing anything wrong. By that logic, any money winner is taking payours from future winners.
    - tantalor 7y ago
      > You aren't doing anything wrong. That's debatable. Lotteries are supposed to be completely up to chance. If by your own ingenuity you exploit a weakness then you are tipping the scales in your favor, which is unfair to less clever players. It's basically the tragedy of the commons; everyone has the same chance of winning, but only you know you can safely risk more and win more, lessening the winning of others.
      - giarc 7y ago
        He didn't have insider knowledge though. He used the games own rules to play an advantage. Those rules were available to everyone, everyone could have done the same.
        directional 7y ago
        The rules are available to everyone, but having enough cash to purchase that many lottery tickets certainly isn't. Unfortunately this is yet another system that enables the already rich to get richer on the backs of the poor.
        brandonscott 7y ago
        Any of the millions of poor people that buy lottery tickets every week could have spent a much smaller initial sum and worked up to the millions. It just would have taken longer.
        directional 7y ago
        According to the couple quoted in the article, taking advantage of a 'Rolldown' draw required an initial investment of $1,100 (equivalent to around $1,500 now). That's not a sum easily available to those who are poor.
        briandear 7y ago
        Perhaps if the poor didn’t spend so much on lottery tickets their station might improve? If they know they are playing a losing bet, why keep doing it? And these folks that were winning were hardly hedge-fund managers. If the “poor” wanted to play to win, perhaps they could get everyone on their block to chip in to buy shares just like the old couple did? They could get all of their friends to save what they would have spent in the lottery over the course of the year, put that fund into the “pot” and then win, reinvesting it and repeating the process. It’s hard to be sympathetic to people that make bad decisions as a habit. For example, if it’s a 1/5,000,000 chance of winning and they still keep playing, that’s on them. The have very little sympathy for losing lottery players. If people choose to spend their money like that, that’s their business, but that doesn’t invite sympathy when it doesn’t work out. It isn’t like they are being defrauded or even cheated. They have access to the same rules of the game and they have access to math just like everyone else.
  - UncleEntity 7y ago
    In these cases the prize pool didn't roll over. The states wanted to entice people to play and they fully succeeded in that goal...
  - NegativeK 7y ago
    Lotteries are a regressive tax; I don't think this particular case was more or less regressive.
tamaharbor 7y ago
Do you feel bad about taking a tax deduction? As long as you play by the rules, your intelligence should be rewarded.

barking 7y ago

I'd enjoy it very much and not feel bad at all.

chrismcb 7y ago

Why would you feel bad? What woukd you have down that was wrong? You aren't taking money from anyone else.

tantalor 7y ago
You are taking money from the prize pool, i.e. payouts for future winners.
- chrismcb 7y ago
  You, and everyone else. That is the rule of the game. You aren't doing anything wrong. By that logic, any money winner is taking payours from future winners.
  - tantalor 7y ago
    > You aren't doing anything wrong. That's debatable. Lotteries are supposed to be completely up to chance. If by your own ingenuity you exploit a weakness then you are tipping the scales in your favor, which is unfair to less clever players. It's basically the tragedy of the commons; everyone has the same chance of winning, but only you know you can safely risk more and win more, lessening the winning of others.
    - giarc 7y ago
      He didn't have insider knowledge though. He used the games own rules to play an advantage. Those rules were available to everyone, everyone could have done the same.
      - directional 7y ago
        The rules are available to everyone, but having enough cash to purchase that many lottery tickets certainly isn't. Unfortunately this is yet another system that enables the already rich to get richer on the backs of the poor.
        brandonscott 7y ago
        Any of the millions of poor people that buy lottery tickets every week could have spent a much smaller initial sum and worked up to the millions. It just would have taken longer.
        directional 7y ago
        According to the couple quoted in the article, taking advantage of a 'Rolldown' draw required an initial investment of $1,100 (equivalent to around $1,500 now). That's not a sum easily available to those who are poor.
        briandear 7y ago
        Perhaps if the poor didn’t spend so much on lottery tickets their station might improve? If they know they are playing a losing bet, why keep doing it? And these folks that were winning were hardly hedge-fund managers. If the “poor” wanted to play to win, perhaps they could get everyone on their block to chip in to buy shares just like the old couple did? They could get all of their friends to save what they would have spent in the lottery over the course of the year, put that fund into the “pot” and then win, reinvesting it and repeating the process. It’s hard to be sympathetic to people that make bad decisions as a habit. For example, if it’s a 1/5,000,000 chance of winning and they still keep playing, that’s on them. The have very little sympathy for losing lottery players. If people choose to spend their money like that, that’s their business, but that doesn’t invite sympathy when it doesn’t work out. It isn’t like they are being defrauded or even cheated. They have access to the same rules of the game and they have access to math just like everyone else.
- UncleEntity 7y ago
  In these cases the prize pool didn't roll over. The states wanted to entice people to play and they fully succeeded in that goal...
- NegativeK 7y ago
  Lotteries are a regressive tax; I don't think this particular case was more or less regressive.

tamaharbor 7y ago

Do you feel bad about taking a tax deduction? As long as you play by the rules, your intelligence should be rewarded.