[gyardley]

This is the article's key insight:

“It’s not an investment. It’s entertainment. For a very small amount of money you might change your life. For $2 you can spend the day dreaming about what you would do with half a billion dollars—half a billion dollars!”

You're not making a bet with negative expected value, you're purchasing an entertaining daydream to help you through your miserable day.

[segmondy]

This is precisely the reason why I play. I play when I know the jackpot is very high, over $100 million. Maybe around 10 times in an entire year. That's $20. How much does pizza cost? or movies? $20 is not much, and when I buy, I day dream the fuck out of it, and not just for a day. I keep the ticket for a month long or so before I look at it.

[lmm]

Why pay for it though? I can daydream that a billionaire will randomly decide to give me half his fortune, for free!

[gyardley]

Because although you can, you won't - probably because there's not 'news' every week about a billionaire randomly giving a person half his fortune. The lottery win happens to somebody, while the billionaire scenario doesn't.

If someone established a reality TV version of something like The Millionaire [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_(TV_series)] then I bet people would start having that sort of daydream. Perhaps such a show would even lead to a decline in lottery ticket purchases, since the get-rich daydream would be available from another source.

[mlrtime]

I think an important piece missing is the active vs passive decision making. When you purchase a ticket your are actively triggering the thought process.

In your scenario there would be a passive trigger that would dull the entertainment affect.

I wouldn't discount the little piece of paper with numbers on it.

[JoeAltmaier]

My buddy Bob dreams and doesn't buy a ticket. His rationale: his chances of the winning ticket blowing down the street and into his open hand are microscopically different from his chance of buying the winning ticket.

[roc]

Social signalling. Like every other human expenditure beyond absolute utility.

[lmm]

What does buying lottery tickets signal other than that I'm a muppet?

[roc]

Honestly, that could be it. Signalling isn't always about showing off -- many times it's just about signalling a willingness to belong. Even signalling a willingness to belong to an objectively undesirable group.

So it could be signalling that you're not "puttin on airs" by acting superior to those around you who play. Or it could be signalling that you legitimately like to belong to the group around you who play. Or it could be simply signalling that you don't take yourself (or $2) that seriously.

[prostoalex]

According to the lotto machine at my local Safeway, you're also an avid supporter of local schools who got $X,XXX,XXX from lottery money.

[bicknergseng]

Pretty much. I hate it whenever someone calls the lottery an idiot tax, citing the odds of winning and ranting about how someone doesn't understand math. Yes, the odds are fantastically low, but so is the opportunity cost, and a lot of that cost ends up going to help fund schools and other good things.

[pessimizer]

That cost disproportionally comes from the poor.

edit: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14945786/Lottery-Demographics

[pessimizer]

Giving up bread for circuses. It makes sense; the marginal cost for adding another audience member to a circus approaches zero.