[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.