Then maybe you don't follow under the demographic of "needy"
My mother also spends $2 on them. Sometimes a couple times a day. She also compulsively gambles and has endangered my life before trying to satiate the urge.
I also grew up absolutely dirt poor, she was homeless half the time, but two unwavering constants in her life have been cigarettes and gambling, and they are far from unrelated when speaking of industry motivations. These industries have ruined my relationship with my mother, severely impacted my own quality of life as a knock-on effect, and I'm far from the only one.
Keep buying the tickets. But you can't justify the state of the industry today because you're not the one caught in its net.
Sorry that sucks. I'm intimately aware of addiction and how it can sadly smash families and people from all backgrounds and economic situations, so I'm empathetic to that problem.
And I'm for sure not disadvantaged myself.
I didn't know where to comment a reply this seemed most relevant.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is a lot of the threads here, to me, read as elitist & missing the full picture.
E.g. for instance missing the value of entertainment.
even on an unkind view of looking at players only as addicts, like lots of drugs (legal and not), that dopamine hit is fun...
to be clear I'm not trying to put that negative frame into all the people's intention here, just trying to explain how I read a chunk of the comments
It's not only some uneducated non-optimal financial ROI calculation made by disadvantaged people, or compulsive gamblers, who are being taken advantage of by state sponsored casinos imho
I will agree that I cannot understand people who do not at least themselves understand the entertainment value from gambling.
I enjoy gambling, I play poker and blackjack. You can consistently be the best player at the table in poker, but blackjack is an obvious scam.
I never show up expecting to win, I don't derive entertainment from imagining I won, I derive entertainment from the competitive experience of the game itself, elevated by stakes.
I also healthily limit myself to gambling only once in a very blue moon. But that's because my motivations are different, and not driven by desperation.
We aren't the ones who need protecting. It's the desperate who are not in a position to make rational decisions and self-regulate.
>E.g. for instance missing the value of entertainment.
There are hundreds of different ways to get entertainment. Humanity will not be worse off if gambling is entirely banned. How much "entertainment value" does daydreaming from a lottery ticket really bring? Why should those addicts be subjected to the misery they experience dealing with their addiction just so you can pretend to win the lottery in your head? You could just as easily spend your time pretending that you find a giant, valuable diamond in the dirt.
My mother also spends $2 on them. Sometimes a couple times a day. She also compulsively gambles and has endangered my life before trying to satiate the urge.
I also grew up absolutely dirt poor, she was homeless half the time, but two unwavering constants in her life have been cigarettes and gambling, and they are far from unrelated when speaking of industry motivations. These industries have ruined my relationship with my mother, severely impacted my own quality of life as a knock-on effect, and I'm far from the only one.
Keep buying the tickets. But you can't justify the state of the industry today because you're not the one caught in its net.