[quote=carlsbadworker]My first impression is: damn, the American poor are rich![/quote]
If I won the lottery, none of my charity would be given to people in the U.S. With the possible exception of the mentally ill, who sometimes get screwed here.
The poor in America:
[img_assist|nid=16016|title=Dayum, I wish we could afford cable. |desc=|link=node|align=left|width=300|height=183]
The poor elsewhere:
[img_assist|nid=16018|title=…|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=184|height=275]
I have never understood why 640 MILLION dollar winners is not preferable to 3 200 million winners. A million dollars for most people is a life altering win. Mortgage and debt gone. College paid for etc.
That said folks would never go for this. Only the idea of a super win keeps folks buying and at astronimical odds akin to finding a grain of sand on a beach!
[quote=GH]I have never understood why 640 MILLION dollar winners is not preferable to 3 200 million winners. A million dollars for most people is a life altering win. Mortgage and debt gone. College paid for etc.
That said folks would never go for this. Only the idea of a super win keeps folks buying and at astronimical odds akin to finding a grain of sand on a beach![/quote]
I never understood why the government is in the extreme gambling business at all.
What is the point of occasionally and arbitrarily taking a few dollars from millions of people while giving hundreds of millions of dollars to a few people?
[quote=pri_dk]I never understood why the government is in the extreme gambling business at all.
The lottery is an absurd way to raise revenue.[/quote]
It is an awesome way to raise money if you can pass laws prohibiting anyone else from providing a competing game under the guise of “gambling is immoral”
I won and after factoring out anything with a probability on par with being struck by lightning, I got exactly my expected value of 10 cents on the dollar back.
