I like this post. That's a point I think needed to be made.

Before reading this, the way I saw it was that for quite a lot of people, there's something akin to a potential barrier as it exists in chemical reactions, for what they can expect of their life. Unless you can invest enough X (energy, time, money, etc.), then what you're trying to do won't work on average. You could also see it as an escape velocity, or the break-even point in a chain reaction getting critical.

To illustrate in the case of a lottery, many people can't expect to ever be able to get interesting returns on whatever they may invest. It's already difficult enough to make a living, and survive on it. The only way to get past that barrier, at least seems, to be to suddenly earn something large enough. Otherwise, even a life's worth of savings and investment would never earn them enough to make a significant difference in their day to day life.