It's a high risk and very high variance bet. The odds are terrible but for 99.999% of people it's the only bet you can make with "instantly project me into the

It's a high risk and very high variance bet. The odds are terrible but for 99.999% of people it's the only bet you can make with "instantly project me into the top echelon of wealth" levels of upside. There's value in that which is not captured by the negative expected value. Finance professionals have access to this kind of bet outside the lottery via leverage and complex derivatives and they place bets all the time. Earlier this year Bill Ackman made 2.6B on a really wacky bet against corporate debt [0]. The lottery is absolutely a waste of money for most people, but if you're rational about it you can see it as an opportunity that has no replacement. 0: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-ackman-billionaire-made-2-6-billion-coronavirus-meltdown/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-ackman-billionaire-made-2-...