Rare for a scam to lay out the odds pretty readily for you. Governments run lotteries exactly because you can trust them. Bob pulling numbers out of a hat for his local lottery will probably be tempted to cheat.
And then they front-load all of the impossibly, stupidly, comedically overoptimistic numbers in the marketing (eg. pre-tax winnings), and have a fine print from which you can barely determine the odds of success (and if you're capable of that you most likely aren't participating either way), and then the whole game is designed so that you feel like you have some sort of superstitious influence over whether you win...
Please, let's not pretend this isn't about extracting money from people who are poor at decision-making.
I understand the odds and play the lottery. I don't think I'm a bad decision maker. I'm sure you waste far more than $2/week on what others might view as a waste.
Please, let's not pretend this isn't about extracting money from people who are poor at decision-making.