I have a number of thoughts about this article. I don't necessarily disagree with what they're saying but: People are going to fantasize anyway, the fantasy is

I have a number of thoughts about this article. I don't necessarily disagree with what they're saying but: People are going to fantasize anyway, the fantasy is impeded without any possibility of it being fulfilled... they're probably never going to marry a prince(ss), but some do. The dollar they spend makes the fantasy a possibility. Like the little girl playing dress up and make believing what it would be like before she ever has any real understanding of the reality. People fantasize about all kinds of things every day (most with no direct financial cost, except by what they're not earning while they're busy daydreaming), at the cost of things they probably should be worrying about, but don't. Day dreaming is a means of escaping your existing reality... but if you take no action, then your day dreaming is just that. You need to take action to give any possibility of it ever becoming more than that. In this case, the $5 for the ticket is that step. Perhaps the fantasy is what you live for. Perhaps you spend your life with your head buried in romance novels, who knows, the effect is the same - you paid $5 for the book which gave you a few good hours of day dreaming, or perhaps even a number of days of escape. The lottery ticket gave you a couple of hours escape before you come back to reality. It's just a pleasant way to pass the time. You can tell just how many people have this mindset by the number of copies of Fifty Shades of Grey you saw being read on public transit after it came out.