[Strilanc]

When someone tells me they play the lottery for entertainment, I lose a serious amount of respect for them. There's being irrational, and then there's understanding exactly how your irrationality is being exploited and just going along with it!

The negative expected value in dollars is enough by itself, but the "how happy will I be?" calculations are even more depressingly bad. The utility of money is usually measured on a log scale, because your first thousand dollars does a lot more for your happiness than your first ten thousand. By that measure going from ten thousand dollars in the bank to ten million wouldn't make you a thousand times happier, it would make you twice as happy. At least until you get used to it (see: Hedonic treadmill [1]). There's a surprising number of bankruptcies caused by lottery winniners, too [1]. Also the whole stressed friendship thing.

So... yeah, playing the lottery gets you negative respect from me and I think that's justified.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill 2: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1324845##

[tfederman]

When someone gets entertainment value from playing the lottery, is it really about the chance of winning multiplied by the amount of happiness the money would bring? Or does it have more to do with the excitement that comes with each drawing? (Similar to how I can enjoy watching a football season even if my team doesn't win the Super Bowl.)

I think it's more likely the latter, though I don't personally see the entertainment value of playing the lottery. I wouldn't lose respect for someone for having a hobby I don't share or understand, though.

[seanflyon]

You misunderstand what "play the lottery for entertainment" means. It very clearly does not mean play for the entertainment winning the lottery would bring. It means play for the entertainment of playing the lottery. Many people enjoy playing the lottery, though I am not one of them.