How does Veeky Forums feel about the lottery, good idea or just a tax on poor people...

Won £30000 when I was 18 then £10000 not long ago and also had £2500. I buy £10 scratch cards everyday have done since first win. Average week I get £20-30back. Sometimes a lot more. Also buy lottos. I'm well up overall from big wins.

a tax on people who don't understand probability.

I gambled over $5000 in inherited money over the last 4 years on lottery ticekts, probably lots more since its all with cash and there are no records, I don't keep losing tickets since someone might happen upon the stash and confront me with my gambling addiction.

I've been really amping it up this month blowing like $25-50 on each draw because no one won the California Lottery since early June, it has the least worst odds of a multimillion jackpot, and once someone wons, it resets to 7 million (in 30 annual graduated payments) and then I'd just be buying like 3 Powerball and Mega Millions tickets at 7 times worse odds of winning.

I'm smart enough to know that my baseline happiness level will not increase if I win the jackpot, only think that will change is having more than enough money, and the elimination of fears and discomforts that stem from lack of money- but stupid enough to have not though of a more clever and more reliable way to increase my money than buy lottery tickets. I won lots of times in amounts from $1-$19, from draw entries that cost $1 or 2 each. Plenty of times I spent like $50 on lottery tickets on Saturday, and get back $2 or nothing even.

Tax on poor people. That said i am about 2500 in (lifetime total) and 9900 return. Havent played for years though

i think some jewish guy was taking a shit one day and while he was constipated he asked him self him what is a easy clever way to make money off fuckin retards hmm ny lottery...laughs in shekkle

Buy a freeking REIT, you can get 8% yield easily, if you're buying lottery tickets you obviously don't care about the value of the original capital (though in a typical REIT it will almost track inflation, so you're good anyway).

Go buy SNH, it's old people homes, this cash flow isn't going to go away. Today you can get 8% and your $5000 would be yielding $400/yr practically guaranteed.

Everyone knows their odds are fucking shit, its tax on retards who understand probability.

It helps rebuild schools and roads so is a good investment over all.

>I bought a thousand bucks with of tickets and I lost it all... Oh well it'll be will spent on the roads I use so win win

Don't bother with it except for entertainment value.
I work at a service counter that cashes tickets up to $500 and sells quick-picks.
I always have fellows come in with $2-15 in winnings on like a $20 quick-pick, and then they spend their winnings plus some on more tickets.
I also have a coworker who watches our scratch-off machine and buys $1 tickets every week and usually just plays his winnings until he's got lunch money or nothing.
Scratch-offs are fun, and that's at least somewhat sensible since he enjoys scratching it off to see if he wins, and not just scanning the bar code.

It's exactly what you think. A way for desperate poor people who feel like they're simply disenfranchised nobles, and not poor as fuck peasants, to have their chance to gain glory and the life they think they should live.

>£10 scratch cards
Non-brit here, that seems like a pretty hefty sum for a scratch-card, what kind of card is that?

Thoughts on lottery pools? Getting a whole collective of people to contribute a handful of currency every week/month so a key person can go and buy a whole load of tickets. Winnings are distributed equally amongst participants. Sounds like it'd certainly solve the financing issue of mass ticket purchase and increase likelihood of success. Thoughts?

I play a dollar every week on the local number drawing only. Odds are better instead of nationwide PowerBall or Mega Million games. Be senseable with gambling. Have fun & put winnings in the bank.

If we think logically the chances of winning are so remote that yes we can agree that its a waste of money. But sometimes you see some shit like this...@2:10

youtube.com/watch?v=mLYORJ0LEu4&t=185s

It would increase your odds of winnin, but not increase your ROI.

Group lottos always strike me as taking all the fun out of it. I buy scratch offs because I have the disposable income and I think they are fun. I don't think I'm going to win.

/thread

Going in together - or did they? - on a $1 play worked out very well for three Mass. asset managers in 2011. This may be my favorite press conference photo of jackpot winners.

...

I'll throw a dollar at the state lotto whenever it gets big enough that people start talking about it. It's worth a dollar imo to get a day or two of fantasy. As with any drug, moderation is key.

I'd believe this was a troll but their are stupid people who think this way.

No my friend, you WILL stay poor. Because you eat and breathe all that is poor.

I won $1k in my Euroshit country in the 8th grade by playing "numbers with a meaning". Each student in our class was assigned a number and I played their numbers. Put in some girl's number instead of mine. Had I put my number instead I'd have hit 6 out of 6. Wasn't gonna be a millionnaire, more like $100k or something.

Yes, but when they end up winning big and you are the one still stuck in your wage cuck job, who will be crything then?

Odds are I won't know anyone who will win and I won't be crying either way because this is fantasy land talk.

Meanwhile in reality while you're out buying menthols, 40's, and lottery tickets my company 401k match of 7% and my own investment of 20% is growing very comfortably.

Stay poor shitstain.

buttcoin was my lottery, paid of pretty handsomely. im not a fan of dreaming about winning because that just makes losing wose, maybe thats why i dont understand it.

if you budget this under "entertainment" keep it at like 5% of your total monthly entertainment budget. For me it works out to about 10 dollars a month max, though I don't bother most months. If you win, you simply put that money back into investing or savings.

Well when I was a kid I won the pokemon burger king toy set when the 1st movie came out.

I just turned 18, so maybe my perspective will change, but I know it's statistically unlikely that I'll retire from it. That being said, other people spend their money everyday on shit that I don't, like maybe a coffee or a candy here or there, with a tiny amount of side cash they have. If I allocate my money that I would otherwise spend on that on the occasional lottery ticket instead, then I don't see it as a waste, just entertainment.

It's good for entertainment value as long as you know how to contain yourself. For a few bucks a month, it can give people some hope for a couple days/hours. No different than renting a $5 movie as long as the hope of the lottery is what makes you happy. I feel bad for the ones who addicted and waste big money on it.

>"I use the lottery as 'entertainment' because handing over my money and getting jack shit in return is what I do for fun"

>match 7%

Give it back Jamal

I don't buy lottos except if I need some spare change but the most logical thing is to buy only 2 tickets.

In a couple of years I will probably win a couple millions so keep working for change poorfag

holy shit you could have at least claimed that as a gambling loss on your taxes

why not just go play slots or roulette or any other game with a negative expectancy?

your odds on those games are actually better

>I don't buy lottos except if I need some spare change
>throw spare change away because you need spare change

That's legit retarded. If you can splurge 10k on lottery than you can make 10k of investments and at least have a positive expected value. Seriously, wouldn't it feel good to throw caution to the wind and buy 10 of the riskiest, most speculative stocks/funds you can find?

National lottery sells scratch cards in £1, £2, £5 and £10 varieties. A bewildering and unnecessarily large number of varieties actually, but I suppose that helps give the illusion of choice and variety when they're generally multi-game "match three" format. The odds of winning are roughly the same for each game but the high-value ones have better prize values.

My gf buys herself a £10 card each birthday and won £100 last year.

Wins 35 mil and hires a bunch of muscle bimbos to perform for him. Mah nigga.

Dude, please never pay to see a movie, concert, visit a gallery or museum. It's a complete con, they just take your money and don't give you anything tangible in return!

As long as you trust the designated person...
I've seen on TV that in a small semi-rural town they did this with the local bar (that everyone knew and was the "center" of the town social life), and once they won they only gave the % of the money to their friends, and kept the rest to renovate the bar.

Idiot tax. Not up for discussion, it's a mathematical fact.

Signed up to a site that lets me play for free every now and then. Played like 10 times so far, never even had 1 matching number. What are the odds on that?

Probably much higher than the odds of missing 10 coin flips in a row, and that happens.

Poorfag in low income neighborhood here.

When you don't have a car and the only store you can reach is generic beat down gas station, and your life is complete shit, people tend to waste money to feel better for a moment. Whether it be alcohol, drugs, candy, SHOES, or lottery tickets.

But for me personally. Fuck the lottery. I can eat breakfast for 8 days on 2$ nigga. (OATMEAL) I'm hungry bro. Why would I throw that money away?

You do realize the odds increase of buying 10k worth of lottery tickets is pretty negligible?

>not selling at the height of the Pokémon go hype

>$1 worth of lottery tickets gives a probability of x to win
>$10k worth of lottery tickets gives a probability of 10000x to win

>negligible change

Fucking poorfags cant even math anymore hahah!

That's not how the lottery works.

Each ticket has a single statistical value of winning. Buying more tickets doesn't increase your odds, you just have more tickets with the same odds.

Ticket 1 has 1 in 20 million
Ticket 2 has 1 in 20 million.

You don't have a 2 in 20 million chance of winning, you have two 1 in 20 million chance of winning.

>Buying more tickets doesn't increase your odds

Pls dont tell me youre this retarded man

Buying more tickets increases your chances to win the same amount, while also increasing the potential sum of loss..

If you still don't understand that playing lotto is a good way to lose money, let me explain expected value:

You pay 2$ for a chance of winning 1 million $. There is 2 millions tickets sold. This means expected value is:
1/2 000 000* (1 000 000$ - 2$) + 1 999 999/2 000 000 * (-2$) = 0.4999 - 1.9999, which means you'd lose approx 1.5$ each time you play.

If you look up the probablity of winning on the back of a lotto ticket, the EV is always negative, otherwise they wouldnt be offering it obv

Was meant for

I would have held through that. Pokemon is a Nintendo franchise that only gets bigger year after year. I'd sell that stuff in another generation or two of the games.

It increases the odds but also decreases the expected value which is just as bad and probably what that user meant you fucking brainlet.

Doesnt decrease EV.
EV always stays the same within the same game, in this case it is and always be negative.

I play $1 each week in the event that I strike the luck of the gods.

Otherwise gambling for profit is dumb.

>I play $1 each week in the event that I strike the luck of the gods.

>gambling for profit is dumb.

>yeah i remember grinding my boots into eddie murphy's couch

i only buy tickets maybe 12 weeks a year for reasons, 2 euromillions 2 draws a week, so thats about £100 a year for the last several year. i've won several times, but overall i am definitely down on what i spent.

i can afford that money so i see it as a bit of entertainment, maybe i'll win big. but i know the chances are long and not in my favour. if i was poor i'd maybe do 1 ticket once a week and keep my fingers crossed. i think too many people spend too much on it, but then plenty of poor people smoke and drink which they probably shouldn't due to the high cost either.

lottery is literally retarded
why not just buy individual stocks instead
way more fun and lucrative

lotto is for poor people.

even when poor people win they end up losing long term.

You'll never have a chance to win if you don't play user.

i never understood people who say shit about money won't make you happy.
the fuck is wrong with them?
i would be the happiest person on earth if i didn't had to work for a living.

You are delusional as fuck. Go run the odds and you'll see you aren't likely to win anything substantial. You have higher chance of getting hit by a bus on the way to the gas station than ever winning. Nothing worse than an arrogant fool. Your parents have failed you.

it actually has a favorable expected value. you just would need to buy up millions of tickets per drawing

I got once a free play and won 200 Euros out of it. Stopped after it, still a game for idiots

Cry more wagie. When I win the big bucks and I'm chilling in my mansion with my capital working me then I will think of you and your shitty life where you have to save money to eat after retirement haahaha

>>mansion

See even if you did (which you won't) win big you'd still be broke in under a decade because you have a poor person mindset.

I'm going to accurately predict your future, you're going to be working till you die, and you'll be one of those old farts standing in line at the bank every 3rd waiting for social security to clear your negative balance so you can withdraw the remainder and spend it on bills.

You are a loser now, and you will stay a loser until you wisen up and quit pissing your money. The fact you laugh at someone saving money just shows how financially illiterate you are.

I think the people who actually win buy like 40,000 tickets

Greed is a hell of a drug

>(ID: 8f2xGGoe) 01/01/17(Sun)16:36:08 No.1700445▶
>I'll throw a dollar at the state lotto whenever it gets big enough that people start talking about it. It's worth a dollar imo to get a day or two of fantasy. As with any drug, moderation is key.
why is your polywhirl deflated?

Are you mathematically retarded, that would be 2 in 40 million. Learn to add.

>being this retarded
You have to multiply the odds together. 1 in 20 million x 1 in 20 million is 1 in 400 trillion

so if you buy 20 million tickets you WILL win having a 20 million in 20 million chance. until you find out its 20,000,006 possible combinations

Stupidity tax.

Though I admit to buying a single Powerball every blue moon or so. I can easily afford $20 /year.

So because other people waste their money it justifies you wasting your money? Logical.

You are both idiots you need to sum the multiple of the sum of the factors the second ticket into the first one.

1x20 million + 1(1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, 25, 32, 40, 50, 64, 80, 100, 125, 128, 160, 200, 250, 256, 320, 400, 500, 625, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1280, 1600, 2000, 2500, 3125, 3200, 4000, 5000, 6250, 6400, 8000, 10000, 12500, 15625, 16000, 20000, 25000, 31250, 32000, 40000, 50000, 62500, 78125, 80000, 100000, 125000, 156250, 160000, 200000, 250000, 312500, 400000, 500000, 625000, 800000, 1000000, 1250000, 2000000, 2500000, 4000000, 5000000, 10000000, 20000000) = 5

You have a one in 5 chance of winning.

> a tax on poor people
More like a tax on stupid people who do not understand how probability is described through the lottery system

There are gambles that can be taken, equally as profitable, that utilize analytical prowess to develop successful investment strategies