Wall Street guys win Powerball lottery

Well, I agree that the lottery is an extremely regressive revenue stream for government but outlawing lotteries or cigarettes would be silly because they would be replaced by criminal enterprises because you can't stop the demand for these products. The legalization of lotteries took a big chunk of the numbers racket and outlawing cigarettes would create a situation similar to prohibition. If outlawed, both would be taken over by organized crime.

 

The downside to the Canadian lottery: your winnings are in loonies.

 

Yeah, and rich people don't smoke fags, of course. :

 

I agreed that lottery sales represent an regressive government revenue stream, not cigarettes.

I buy A lottery ticket from time to time, myself. What's sad is seeing down-and-out guys spending the grocery money on 16 of them, with different variations of numbers they've plotted out.

 

I absolutely promise you that rich people don't smoke nearly as much as poor people. I promise. Want to bet?

 

Again: Everyone stop at your local gas station convenience store. Check out the crowd. Count the MBAs and MDs.

 

For one thing, there's not nearly as many rich people, and they have other places other than convenience stores they can readily go to for better brands, tho in most parts of the country, the place to fill up the tank is at convenience stores, and I assume most rich people don't have drivers. And your second post is an anecdotal, silly argument.

And to go on and on about the poor smoke, that's entering Shockleyan territory.

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105550/among-americans-smoking-decreases-income-increases.aspx

 

http://consumerist.com/2010/05/poor-people-spend-9-of-income-on-lottery-tickets.html

 

What's the return on that 9%? If you buy 1100 1$ tickets a year, how much are you earning back in winnings?

 

Hahahahaha...let's be snarky about the less fortunate....hahahahaha....let's get them financial advisers with a scratch-off...hahahahaha....

Man, talking about giving up the farm on the company you keep intellectually....

And again, 9 percent of a poor person's income, which doesn't seem that much, really, doesn't represent much of an opportunity cost. And if someone wants to spend 50 percent on lottery tickets....we're not his fucking nanny.

 

A quick Google search found me an article that said that the Kansas Lottery returns about 53 percent in winnings. I don't know if that's typical or not.