Comments on: Dumb Money: The Lottery

By: xpac

xpac — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:21:22 +0000

I have never played the lottery here is why, I want to make a fairly comfortable living, and beyond that I don’t find satisfaction. I know a lot of people who find little satisfaction with every day thinds, and they think money will solve it. How about love, learning, and faith in yourself and god!

By: Jazzy

Jazzy — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:02:18 +0000

well people in america spend that much on fast food alone if we had something other than buying food and eating to kill ourselfs. we wouldnt be a fat america now would there? People are going to spend money period why not support the state and the game if u have a chance to get rich off of it? i would play the lottery everyday.

By: Carnival Roundup Time!

Carnival Roundup Time! — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:03:43 +0000

[...] Debt Plan looks over the odds of winning the lottery. Can you guess whether he’ll play [...]

By: bostonian

bostonian — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:54:53 +0000

Actually, buying the first lottery ticket is a good investment. Its the second one that is stupid. To take your example, say you spend 52 dollars/year on the lottery. If you saved that at 5%, at the end of 20 years you would have $137 (or after 20 years of saving in your example 1,805 for an investment of 1,040). However, with the effect of inflation (I assumed 3%), you would only be able to buy about 76 dollars worth of goods (or about 1000 with a 1040 investment over 20 years), and that is assuming that you had it in a tax advantaged mutual account. If you had in in regular savings you would be paying taxes on your growth every year, and you would have in fact have lost buying power.
If you instead spend that 1 dollar per week on a lottery ticket, you have gone from a zero percent chance of winning millions of dollars to an extraordinarily tiny chance. So while your chances of winning the lottery are indeed low, this kind of high risk high reward investment may be the best thing you can do with a dollar. What else are you going to invest it in? A soda?
Of course the next dollar you spend has you going from a very tiny chance to double a very tiny chance – which is still very small and unlikely. Therefore, you haven’t materially increased your chances at all with the extra dollar. Waste of money

By: Carnival of Personal Finance #143 - Oh Canada Edition

Carnival of Personal Finance #143 - Oh Canada Edition — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:15:34 +0000

[...] Debt Plan says that playing the lottery is just plain [...]

By: Fiscal Musings

Fiscal Musings — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:15:42 +0000

I don’t really care if there’s a lottery or not since either way I choose not to participate. If someone else wants to pay the dummy tax, that’s their business.