Stories tagged lottery

That's how lotteries are often described. The odds of winning the top prize in the Mega Millions lottery is more than 600 times worse than your odds of getting hit by lightning. Yet people continue to play. Why?

Professor Lloyd Cohen suggests people aren't paying for the chance so much as they are paying for the dream. They enjoy fantasizing about winning, the same way people enjoy reading lifestyle magazines or watching movies of the rich and famous. And at one dollar a pop, a lottery ticket is not only cheaper than these other forms of entertainment, it actually has a chance -- no matter how infinitesimally tiny -- of actually paying off.

Tags : math, lottery

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