No. It's more like "Do you want one single marshmallow, which might bring you a few brief seconds of pleasure - in the unlikely chance that the dog doesn't eat it first or it doesn't get covered in ants first? Or would you rather have a one in a million chance of having as many marshmallows as you want, whenever you want, for the rest of your life, with no more worries about the dogs or ants because there'd be plenty for the dog and you would never have ants anymore?"
Except the odds are never NEARLY as good as one in a million, and humans have a well documented inability to fairly judge odds and understand large numbers.
Would the lottery be nearly as exciting for people if they had a genuine understanding for the statistics involved? I don't mean that they've seen the math, but that you can feel in your gut just how impossible it is to "win" the lottery
