JK – But I have your attention now… (gotta love click bait.)
I’ve never purchased a Lottery Ticket – and NEVER will.
Why?
Because it’s entirely irrational. And even more so when the prize is $1.6 BILLION.
I read this am that you are 500x (500x PEOPLE) more likely to be hit by lighting (LIGHTNING!!!).
And when the prize is a record-high (like this one), your chances of winning decrease exponentially, while the effect of the prize isn’t that much greater than the effect of winning the lottery on any other day (follow me?)
I follow a statistician on Medium, and he broke down how rational buying a lottery ticket is:
- “Buying a lottery ticket is EXACTLY as rational as spending $800 a day for a device that helps you avoid being hit by lighting.”
So, why the $@$% to people spend $2 on something they aren’t going to win?
Here’s why: Because the perceived value BEFORE they find out they lost is far greater than $2. The feeling of hope, relief, and the “just maybe it’ll be me” far exceeds $2.
They lose, the perceived value is gone, but it comes back, and they know that because they spent that $2 they were not left behind.
You know, since a kid, I’ve paid a lot of attention to how people spend their time & money. And the funny part about all of this isn’t that we are illogical about how we expend our Time, Money, and Resources; it’s how much effort people will put into lying about how they spend their Time, Money, and Resources.
Let that sit.
Cheers.
