Found $5 on the ground.

[conuly]

Strongly tempted to buy a Mega Millions lottery ticket.

Pros: It's a cheap way to fantasize about living in the wonderful world where money has solved approximately 13% of my problems, or 39% of those problems that don't involve current events.

Cons: I won't win.

Pros: But if I did win, I could pay everybody back, like, tomorrow and have enough left over to buy myself pizza.

Cons: Seriously, somebody wins eventually, but it won't be me.

Pros: But, like, a billion dollars!

Cons: Half a billion after taxes. Is it even worth it? And I won't even win.

Pros: Okay, but if I did win....

Cons: Lottery winners often end up broke and miserable, which is just as well, as I won't win.

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/27/1113907119/mega-millions-lotto-1-billion

Poll #27328 Mega Millions - *billion dollar jackpot*

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 64

View Respondents

Should I waste $2 in this way?

View Answers

Yes
38 (59.4%)

No
26 (40.6%)

How about something else, like a soda?

View Answers

Yes
47 (82.5%)

No, seriously, be responsible
10 (17.5%)

Comments

[solarbird]

Here's the thing; at a $2 shot, at above $180 million or so - I forget, it's been a while since I've seen this calculation - it honestly becomes a reasonable long-shot investment choice (in the context of a proper investment portfolio), given that $2 isn't make-or-break for you somehow, which it is for very few people.

Going above $2 is a fool's errand even if the odds of return doubles because the actual overall delta on the probability of winning improves so little. (To simplify: with a $0 investment, the odds are 0:1. With a $2 investment, the odds are x>0:1, where x is very small, but still literally infinitely more than 0. With a $4 investment, the odds are 2x>0:1, where x remains very small, and the improvement in probability of return is not particularly relevant. And while there are certainly lesser prizes which improve the return, economically they aren't really very interesting in the context of the larger picture.)

So once in a while I'll throw $2 at some sort of lottery ticket, just because once in a while, it's a legit long-shot investment.

[conuly]

Going above $2 is a fool's errand even if the odds of return doubles because the actual overall delta on the probability of winning improves so little.

Yes, when I talked about this with Eva I said exactly that. Buying ONE ticket moves you from "actually no chance" to "virtually no chance" but buying two tickets, or ten, or twenty, or even a thousand is not going to make any difference to your chances of winning, not really. And that way lies financial ruin.

I also pointed out that as gambling is definitely addictive, if you're going to engage in it you need to set firm limits from the start, like "don't spend more than X dollars a week NO MATTER WHAT" or, as I do, "don't even think about it until the jackpot is big enough to hit the news".

[cellio]

Yeah, one ticket to get to "virtually no chance", or as entertainment, is different from buying more than one (which would not help). I bought a ticket when it was at $1.5B a year or two back -- didn't expect to win and of course didn't, but I was willing to spend $2 once.

[shadowkat]

Well, I bought one. If I win - I'll send you some.

It's unlikely though.

I only bought it - because they were doing it as a group at the office - and if they won and left, I didn't want to be left out.

[conuly]

LOL!

That's a great reason to buy a ticket, though. You don't want to be the only poor schlub who didn't win.

[frandroid]

Group buys are great. It doesn't seem to be a thing here in Ontario, but it's big in Québec where I'm from. One of my sisters' FIL won $5M last year in a group buy! (They split $50M 10 ways)

[shadowkat]

I got suckered into spending two more bucks on it today. Odds are against me, but...if it happens, I want to go with the group.

[dark_phoenix54]

I'm going to break a habit, and buy a ticket if I can remember when I go into town. It's just.. the things you could do with that money! Tim wouldn't have to work any more, I'd get my teeth fixed, I'd give money to the shelter, hospice, the library, who knows what else, travel, buy property, put most of it in a safe place and live off the interest! And it's only $2 (I think)

[conuly]

It is only $2. It's a special tax on the poor, and the poor can't pay much more than that.

[spiffikins]

I voted not to buy the ticket, you shouldn't bother, because *I* am going to buy the winning ticket :D

For $2 you get the fun of dreaming about how you would spend the money, right up until you check the numbers :D

I buy a ticket every few years - usually when the prize gets up to something absolutely ridiculous.

[conuly]

LOL, bet you won't win :)

[spiffikins]

You'd win that bet :D

[the_siobhan]

That's exactly it. If I have a ticket I can fantasize about what I could do with the money. I know it's only a fantasy, but the price of that fantasy is $2.

[siliconshaman]

The odds of you winning go up quite a bit if you actually buy a ticket.. in comparison.

[kshandra]

I am ABSOLUTELY paying the math tax this week.

[darkoshi]

If you found $5 and spend $2 of it on a ticket, even if it doesn't win you're still $3 ahead, right?

[calimac]

"Should I waste $2 in this way?"

Only if you'll get $2 worth of entertainment out of the process of doing it.

[gale_storm]

Well, you could look at it like, “Money found that wasn’t mine from earning it, but it came my way today, so why not try to use it for something that definitely isn’t due to my earning it!!” Or something like that. (Logic? Maybe, or maybe not.)

[fox]

For the entertainment value of speculating about the possibility of winning a billion dollars, $2 is waaaaaay cheaper than a movie ticket.

[hannah]

A $2 lottery ticket, in and of itself as a single purchase, will get you about as much transient pleasure as a soda. If you've got a couple of dollars to spend like that, it's a brief thing to enjoy.

[adrian_turtle]

It's found money. You don't have to spend ALL of it on essentials. $2 on entertainment is reasonable. Once upon a time, you could spend $2 for a movie ticket and get 3 hours of fantasy. Now movies are a LOT more expensive and somewhat shorter. Some people can get 2 days of enjoyable fantasy out of a lottery ticket...others are so disappointed afterwards that it ends up not being fun.