As the title of this post shows, I tend to consider lottery tickets as a tax on dumb people (kind of like cigarette taxes, actually). Perhaps it would be less insulting to say "a tax on people who can't do math."
Now, I see nothing wrong in buying an occasional lottery ticket. But I've never bought one myself, simply because I don't want to identify myself as a "dumb person." Nebraska thinks I'm actually dumb enough to buy a lottery ticket? With these odds? They have a pretty low opinion of my intelligence, don't they?
Well, this is why I don't gamble in casinos, either. Gamble when the odds are against me? How dumb do they think I am? Even if I won, I'd know that it was a dumb thing to do.
I do gamble in the stock market, although I call it "investing." Maybe that's dumb, too, but I do it because I think the odds are in my favor. In the long run, over time, the stock market does go up. True, that may change in the future, but I'm just playing the odds here.
When I started investing, I was putting as little as $25 a month into it - less than what some people spend on lottery tickets. I've made some huge mistakes - some my fault, but some not so much - but overall, things have turned out pretty well.
Maybe I haven't won the lottery,... but then, neither have you. :)
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