The Lottery

Here in Georgia like in allot of states in the US we have a state lottery which allot of people play including people in my family that sometimes spends allot of money on the lottery fueled by the memories of the few times they have won a little bit of money. In this post I will talk about the lottery, how the odds are stacked against you and how immoral the state lotteries are

I'll start with the odds: In Georgia the big lottery is fantasy 5, In fantasy 5 you pick 5 numbers out of a pool of 1 though 39, the odds of getting one number 1 in 7.8 (39/5) or a 12.82 chance (on average you will get one number 12.82 times out of 100 plays) (1 divided by 39 * 100), the odds of getting two numbers is 1 in 74.1 (39/5*39/4) or 1.35 chance, 3 numbers: 1 in 913.9 (39/5*38/4*37/3) or 0.1, 4 numbers: 1 in 16 450.2 (39/5*38/4*37/3*36/2) or 0.006 and all 5: 1 in 575,757 (39/5*38/4*37/3*36/2*35) or 0.00017. As you can see the odds are stacked against you.
Now I didn't know how to calculate the odds for a lottery so I looked it up. Using Google math (type the math in a Google search box) it is easy. Say you have a lottery with 4 numbers, 0 though 9: it would be 10/4*9/3*8/2*7 (sense any number divided by 1 is that number you can leave out the last divide)

Some people you can't tell the odds to, they will just quote Hon Solo. To them I have this: say some one wins $500 thousand on a lottery and the tickets for that lottery cost $1. That money doesn't magically appear out of nowhere, it comes from people who have played that same lottery and lost, so 500 thousand people had to pay and loose but lotteries keep a portion of the money paid to play the lottery. Lets say they keep 75%; that means 2 million people had to play and loose. It doesn't matter how much the winners win, that money comes from those who have played and lost. For there to be winners the vast majority must loose.

Now to the morality of the lottery. As i said the state lotteries are immoral. Now i am not against gambling (I've gambled before and I'll gamble again) and its not the lottery playing that is immoral. Whats immoral is the lottery itself. The majority of people who play the lottery are poor, they play with false hopes of winning allot of money. The money they play with could go to bills for or cloths for their children. I'm not going to call them immoral because they think they have a chance of winning. The lotteries are immoral because they take advantage of these people. State lotteries are started to gain money for the state. Now the states could simply increase taxes on those making more than $250 thousand a year, increase it more on those who make more than $500 thousand and even more on those who make a more than a million. I'm not talking about huge increases and these people can fucking afford it unlike the pore with false hope of making millions with lotteries.
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