Lottery Tickets

Do you reckon it's a bad idea to spend $5 a week on lotto tickets on the off chance I win. To me it's such a low proportion of my income and I don't think I would notice it was gone. I don't spend money on coffee or anything else that is a small but repetitive purchase.

Obviously It's very unlikely I would win but the reward can pretty much set you up for life so if it's not gonna impact me in any way why not do it?

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I don't see the harm in it, I spend $5 a week on shit anyway

Go ahead user! Someone had to pay the stupid tax!

Instead donate $260 a year to people who could really use it. That money means so little to you, you're going to throw it away. Surprisingly, this will help you live a better life.

Alternatively buy 40 tabs of acid once a year. Take all 40 at once. The results will be more beneficial to your life than actually winning the lottery.

Isn't the lottery just an instrument to keep the proles in their place?

You'd be better off gambling that money. At least you can get some enjoyment from it, and actually have a chance of winning/influencing your result.

$5 buy in poker tournament once a week, sounds fun

$5 on a multimillion sided dice roll, less fun

>1 in ~300 million chance of winning
Lottery is just tax for stupid peo- i mean yeah go ahead! Maybe you'll win bro!

>Do you reckon it's a bad idea to spend $5 a week on lotto on the off chance I win.

Yes. Stuffing 5 bucks a week under your mattress and making your own "lottery win" after 5 years has a higher expected value than actually playing the lottery. Given inflation it's still a negative expected value, but thousands of times higher.

The bad part isn't playing lotto. It's expecting to win. If you want to blow 5 bucks on something you consider fun - go for it! But never gamble to make money.

Lottery is tax for the stupid

I won $1000 on a scratch-off recently...it's the only time I ever got anything good. I may actually be up overall now, having spent probably $500 or so.

I think the trick is to buy the newer games (before all the big prizes are awarded) $10 or $20 tickets once every so often and only if you're feeling lucky. The chances are sometimes actually pretty good that you'll win something, but it's definitely a losing game in the long run.

A stupid tax that payouts some idiot often

>pretty good

People argue about this shit constantly, because they insist on looking at it from only one angle.
From an investment standpoint, it's horrible.
From an entertainment standpoint, it's as valuable as any other game of chance, which is entirely a matter of perspective.

The fun isnt in winning. Its in imagining what youd do if you won. Its a form of escapism not unlike other forms of entertainment. Thats what edgy teens on /frugal/ dont get

$1300 wont change anyones life

I've bought some bitcoin and monero and consider them my lottery tickets with great odds. I get to fantasise about being a millionaire if they ever reach their full potential and it's way better than one in a million odds of happening.

>bitcoin will raise %2920000000
Lol youd be better off playing the lotto

I do this with stocks and crypto and instead.
The odds are better and even the worst picks won't cost you 100% unless you baghold to bankruptcy like a chimp.

>Invest $1300 into bitcoin in March 2011 at $1/coin
>Not even going for 2010 when it was $.08
>1300 btc = $780,000
>life changing money for someone who only had $1300 to invest


you know this really happened for a few hundred guys?

But who the fuck here is advocating spending $1300 on lottery tickets?

You cant retire off a $1 cryptocoin

If you buy a Powerball ticket every day on your way home from work, you'll spend throw away $1300 in under 3 years.

I've bought penny stocks with price targets 5x+ higher than what I paid.
I've ridden penny stocks up a few dozen bucks in a single day.
I'm riding ETH right now and mining Pascal.

How many stocks go up 292 million percent?

>Save up for three years invest it all in one thing and then wait five years to see if you picked one investment out of a million that will rise rapidly enough youll have life changing money
Ya thats not as fun

Are you autistic?

Dollar cost averaging, sperglord.

No im just making the point of how fucking retarded it is to compare investing to playing the lottery. Theyre seperate entities

lol first of all in 2.5 years btc went from $1 to $1250 so you wouldn't have to wait 5 years. obviously that was a unique investment opportunity, but the whole point is, by saving money you'd spend on lottery tickets just as practice throughout your life, you would have extra disposable income to speculate on this risky shit.

>fun
>profitable
well which one are you here for?
and yeah getting xx,000% returns in crypto isn't much fun.

Wow just let me invest this extra 1000 dollars. Look out buffet

...

If you're already rich, why would you play the lottery? If you're not already rich, $1,000 can do some cool things.

Why do I have to explain this? Who are you making $650,000/year and buying lottery tickets bro? Where do you work and why do you buy the tix?

That is $260 a year. If you put that into an ETF that follows the S&P 500, you could have an additional ~$138,000 in 40 years for retirement.

only $138,000 bro that's stupid I'd rather keep playing the lottery and win $999 million every week brah who even cares about $138,000 obviously not me that's why I'm buying lottery tickets because I have so much money that $138,000 doesn't do shit for me. Hell bruh, $999 million would be less than I make in a year but I still buy lottery tickets because it's u-

Im not rich but how poor do you have to be to think $5 a week can do cool things

Lol no it wouldnt. Are you fucking high? 280 a year youd have to be extremely lucky to have 10000 at retirement

Woops meant 100,000. S&p aint magic. Even 6 or 7 apr isnt is very likely and thats not sustainable over 40 years

You would have more than that if you just put it in a CD that kept up with inflation. Why do I bother with this board anymore?

Why are you comparing playing the lottery to investing? Are you autistic?

the way the scratchers are rigged prevents long strings of losing cards. It's not gonna pay you back most of the time, but if you wanna minimize loss you should buy it monthly/bimonthly

A solo lottery player is 100% idiot
But a person who play in lottery pool is 10% idiot

Lottery pool is the smartest way to play lottery. You are still stupid but you are much less stupid than solo players if you play lottery pool. Don't be the solo lottery player because they are the dumbest idiots, play in a lottery pool to reduce your stupidity.

You wanna make a lottery pool on ethereum network with me bruh? we take a 1% fee. we spread it over several different lotteries. sort of like a lottery index.

lottery commercials are the comfiest commercials

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