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Comment by jccalhoun | Hacker News Reader

I found this statistic to be the most interesting: "In 1999, researchers at Duke University reported that American households spent an average of $162 per year on lottery tickets, but low-income households spent $289 and those with less than $10,000 in income spent $597. Higher lottery purchases also were associated with lower educational attainment and ethnic minorities."

I didn't find the fact that poorer people were more likely to play surprising but just how much more. Nor would I have guessed that the overall average was anywhere near $162 a year. I don't think I've spend that much on the lottery in my 20+ years of being old enough to play the lottery.

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Part of it could be explained by how the lotteries are marketed. For example, in the south side of Chicago (not exactly known for its manicured lawns and gated communities) there was a billboard advertising the lottery: "Your ticket to easy street." As more anecdotal data, it has been my observation (without actually recording my finds in an organized manner) that one will see considerably more lottery advertisements in low-income neighborhoods than in more wealthy neighborhoods.

I'm not saying that advertising is the explanation, but I'd be surprised to find that it had no bearing at all. I also kind of wish that state governments would, well, cut it out.

I have found the advertisements to be very interesting in Denver too. They more or less imply that you are going to win. Some of the claims are along the lines of "How are you going to spend your millions?" Here they would never let the casinos put an ad like that up. I guess that's the wonderful part of state sponsored gambling is that it gets to ignore state consumer protection controls.

I think that advertising is more likely an effect rather than a cause. The lottery knows their market.

It's probably a symbiotic relationship to some degree.

To a degree. But it would be silly to think Lotto would avoid marketing to a higher income demographic if they thought there was a chance they could get the same return from it. (Especially since the higher income demographic would have more money to spend).

But marketing to a higher income demographic is considerably more expensive (per eyeball/impression). High income demographics are targeted with ads for high-margin goods (cars, vacations, fashion goods), which have 3- to 5- digit margins that can be used to advertise them, so there is more competition to target ads towards wealthier people.

The higher income demo would rather gamble on Wall St, where the odds are much better.

Sometimes they fund startups and hunt for unicorns.

I think the median numbers (in combination with mean) would be very interesting. I am suspicious that numbers like that are not spread anywhere close to evenly through those demographic groups.

It's like a redistribution of wealth scheme. Welfare checks go to the poor who use their welfare to purchase lotto tickets. Some ends end back in the governments hands and some lands in the lottery operators coffers. Anyone know how much lottery officials and employees earn/make?

Then add on top of it the scandal that happened in the past where a lottery official was selling the winning numbers to certain people in return for a kickback from the winnings.

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/with-14b-lottery-ja...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/01/0...

And the wiki article explains a little bit more on how he did it[1]: "When his trial began on April 13, 2015, evidence was introduced by the prosecutors to support allegations that Tipton had rigged the draw in question, by using his privileged access to an MUSL facility to install a rootkit on the computer containing Hot Lotto's random number generator, and then attempting to claim a winning ticket with the rigged numbers anonymously."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Lotto_fraud_scandal

Yeah, it makes me want to look at the numbers. We as a family spend maybe $20; so are there households that are spending tens of thousands?

Perhaps, but I think it more likely that there are tens of thousands that spend a little more than the average.

I was shocked the first time I realized how big some lottery-playing communities are, and to what extent it's actually a social activity.

Oh yes. There's a customer at my local 7-11 who spends a couple hundred bucks on every powerball draw. That's a twenty grand over the course of a year, and that's assuming she doesn't play other games.

I have no idea how much money she has, but she doesn't spend much on her clothes or car.

get rich or die trying

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