This doesn't take into account the value of the "hope" that buying a lottery ticket gets you. Specifically, the owner of a lottery ticket has bought the right t

This doesn't take into account the value of the "hope" that buying a lottery ticket gets you. Specifically, the owner of a lottery ticket has bought the right to dream about how their life could suddenly be turned around if only their numbers came up. I admit that this "hope" may not be worth much to some people, but to those who are scraping by it might be worth quite a lot. (I will leave discussion about whether lotteries exploit the poor to another day.)