[jtheory]

I'm finding this a depressing read.

Hooray, we're figuring out all of the tricks to push people into "thinking myopically" and buying what we want them to buy.

Here are the triggers; here's how people make mistakes in buying decisions, and how to exploit that. Here's how to frame your sell (Get them to focus on loss! Remind them of their poverty!), here's how to get them to buy more tickets instead of just one.

Lottery tickets aren't too bad; they're harmless for most people buying them, there's a fun little kick of "what if...?", but (as the article points out) as revenue for the state, they are a regressive tax; poor people pay a much larger percentage of their income into lottery schemes than people who are better off, and of course some of them pay enough to really harm themselves, going for the "Hail Mary" solution to their money woes but just bleeding themselves slowly instead.

Winning isn't actually a positive result, either -- the article doesn't get into stats on attempted suicide, etc. for lottery winners, but they're not good.

Is there anyone out there using this kind of research to actually help people? Or to let people who're just playing a fun game, play it; but still protect the people who are grabbing at a false life preserver?

[seanflyon]

> they are a regressive tax

Indeed. My favorite quote on the subject "Lotteries are a tax on the uneducated to pay for education" (I do not recall the source)

[stevesearer]

I wonder if the government could use some of the same marketing for income taxes to feel like they are fun and interesting rather than being such a negative experience. Something like 100 people each year never have to pay taxes again.

[prostoalex]

Has been tried in somewhat different context:

http://www.kornferryinstitute.com/briefings-magazine/summer-...

"Swedish National Society for Road Safety created a “speed camera lottery” in Stockholm. At select traffic spots, drivers would see a digital display of their speed, as measured by radar, and a camera would snap a picture of their license plate. If they were over the speed limit, they got a ticket in the mail. However, drivers who were at or under the limit were automatically entered into a lottery to win money at the end of each month. The amount of money depended on the speeders – their fines went into the prize fund. The results were impressive. Over three days (24,857 cars photographed), the average car’s drive-by speed went down from 32 kilometers an hour to 25 – a 22 percent reduction."

[jtheory]

That's a great idea! Each year, they could choose some number of winners from everyone who gets their return in on time, with no corrections required.

They'd have to sort it carefully enough that it wouldn't be a loophole for abuse (e.g., if you win, could you be hired by a major corporation who will somehow funnel their entire worldwide revenue though you?), and to be sure a Zuck-level taxpayer doesn't win it, but then that'd be a huge motivation for people who do pay taxes to get their paperwork together in time.

Of course, simplifying US tax law would be even better -- "filing your tax" return could be trivial for most people, but it isn't -- but that's proved a hard nut to crack.

[ZeroGravitas]

This strategy (using behavioural economics for good) seems to be referred to as "nudge", after the book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_(book)

There are savings accounts structured as lotteries which have been shown to shift expenditure from lotteries to savings:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/09/cra...