There was recently large jackpots here in the United States for two of the most popular lottery games. With each game’s winning ticket awarding nearly $1 billion.
The talk in the news, the office, and at the stores, was all about the lottery.
- “What would you do if you won?”
- “How many tickets did you buy?”
- “Do you want to buy in to the office pool?”
- “How much would taxes be!?”
It’s exciting stuff – the prospect of winning that large sum of money all at once. All you have to do is a buy a $2 piece of paper, and pray!
It’s all fun and games, right?
Why You Should Avoid The Lottery
Everybody knows that the chances of winning a lottery jackpot are incredibly small. Yet, we still feel a thrill when we buy a ticket; we know there is a chance we might win. And many people will say that’s just a very small price to pay for the fun of imagining a win.
But here’s why it’s not fun:
Tax – The lottery system is one of the most unequal taxations in our society. People who are lower income and/or have gambling addictions are the largest consumers of lottery tickets. These people are supporting the lottery system far more than higher income households that play “to have a little fun” when the jackpot gets large.
Encourages Consumerist Thoughts – If you want to do something terrible for your mindset, just have a few nights of dreaming of how much stuff you would buy after a large financial windfall. Car, houses, vacations, etc. We say it’s just for fun, but ultimately it encourages us to dream fondly of material excess.
Fosters Discontentment – And what happens when you don’t win the lottery? The dream is over and you are back to reality. Your job, your possessions, and your wealth, are what they are. If you’ve worked hard during you life, you should be happy with what you have. But by playing the lottery, you slowly chip away at your personal contentment.
Lowest Form of Entertainment – When it’s all said and done, playing the lottery just means you wasted a few dollars for the ability to dream of a financial windfall. The lottery is just a shitty way to entertain yourself. Next time try to be more creative with that money. Donate it. Give it to a kid. Throw a few dollars into a river. Leave it in your wallet/purse.
I think lotteries are unethical because they exploit a lack of understanding of basic mathematical facts among vulnerable people. They also increase economic inequality since they channel a lot of money to a few lucky individuals while making a lot of people poorer.