[tryitnow]

That's not a fair comparison.

Lotteries and casinos are recognized as a form of entertainment - gambling - people may not behave rationally and they may end up ruining their lives, but there is a certain folk wisdom that gambling just loses money and you shouldn't do it (except for fun).

Investing has different norms and expectations. Few people think that financial analysis is "fun" in the same way that going to a casino or buying lottery tickets is fun - so the "entertainment" value isn't there in the same way. But many financially unqualified people will be bamboozled by con-artists who take advantage of the apparent "respectability" of investing.

[pessimizer]

> Lotteries and casinos are recognized as a form of entertainment - gambling - people may not behave rationally and they may end up ruining their lives, but there is a certain folk wisdom that gambling just loses money and you shouldn't do it (except for fun).

This is a pretense. They're recognized as things that generate huge sums of money for nothing for the owners of lotteries and casinos. They refer to them as "entertainment" to abandon responsibility for serious consequences. Cigarette companies would be happy to sell "smoking entertainment."

edit: to be fair, nutritional supplements have basically lobbied their way into the same thing.

[trentnix]

Casinos will take your grandmothers last dollar and throw her out on the street when her credit runs out.

Somehow the regular people are smart enough to know the lottery is entertainment but they aren’t smart enough for investment wizardry. It’s just incidental, I guess that the government profits significantly from the lottery.

Listen, I’ve heard and understand the arguments “why” investors must be accredited. But I can’t help but find myself hearing these arguments and thinking “this is the government codifying the wealth gap”. When Slick Rick scams someone, it’s the worst thing ever. But when the government scams us all, it’s just the way the world works.

But hey, Powerball is just entertainment! Right?