Mega Millions Lottery

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3778006

by flyingtechie • 14 years ago

5 3 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Do Entrepreneurs play Lottery? If yes. Why? If no. Why?

robjama• 14 years ago

Yup, it's called making iOS apps.

IanDrake• 14 years ago

At ~500 million. Yes. What's a few dollars for the dream of crazy money? But normally, no.

pbj• 14 years ago

Statistically you have a higher chance of getting struck by lightning, dating a supermodel, dying in a plane crash, and even being sentenced to death row AND then being pardoned than you do of winning the Mega Million.

Lotteries are a regressive (although optional) tax that tend to attract disproportionately high numbers of people who shouldn't be wasting their money on them. I'm not talking about buying one ticket, but plenty of people drop huge portions of their paychecks on them. Furthermore many lottery winners tend to go bankrupt extremely quickly due to no concept of how to manage their spending.

That said it's a double edged sword, since many states are able to use their lottery revenues to offer scholarships or other funding to help make up for greatly reduced budgets. I'm surprised that more states haven't gone straight up Nevada and legalized everything when you consider just how many are suffering.

Mega Millions Lottery

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