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danlowlite comments on Perpetual Motion Beliefs - Less Wrong
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I suspect the people who suspect a real problem with the lottery have never played it.
I don't play regularly, or at all anymore. I can actually count on one hand the number of times I have, but in all those occasions the primary joy from that was not the possibility that I might become more wealthy. It was because it was fun to engage with my peers in a group discussion of "What If."
From what I have witnessed, this seemed to be a popular activity: the discussion of fantasy. This didn't mean that anyone had any illusions about the possibility of winning. I can do that math.
Simply viewing it as a probability game ignores a motivation: it's fun to dream. And it's fun to do so together. "What would you get?" "Who would you give money to?" "Would you quit right away or give two-weeks' notice?" and so on.
Of course, because I only bought lottery tickets with people who bought lottery tickets with me means that my sample is biased towards those who bought them with me. And that I bought lottery tickets.
Edit: Just a note that the "What If" game need not be a social activity. Obviously.
The "what if" game can be played even if you don't buy the ticket.
What's more, there's another "what if" game that you're neglecting... that's the "what if I invest this money in something actually achievable here and now?"
This is the game that investors and entrepreneurs play, and if you actually put money into the end-result of that game you have a higher expected payoff than that with the "lottery ticket what if" game
You may find a waste of hope interesting. Like taryneast suggests, everyone plays the "what if?" game- what matters is what you play it about. "What if Brad Pitt leaves Angelina Jolie for me?" is a less profitable question to think about than "What if I talk to the cute guy at the coffee shop?". And since you only think about one or two of those questions at a time, there is a real trade-off involved with planning for the first instead of the second.