This always feels like a laboured point. I play a line a week, I don't notice the £2, the lottery pays out a lot to different charities and one day if I'm very lucky I might get an email telling me I won some money. I'm sure there's worse places to lose a couple of quid.

I used to believe this but I’m not so sure it’s true. Gambling is addictive and I think that things which are addictive can overcome reason.

I know a lot of smart developers who buy loot boxes in games, for example.

I used to have a similar outlook (stating that lotteries are a tax on the mathematically illiterate), but now $3 for that small rush when I check the numbers is for sure worth it.

This is extremely condescending. For someone with assets (retirement savings, a house, etc.) playing the lottery doesn't make sense - you could save that money and have a marginally better life just by investing it. For people on the other side of the financial divide, life is basically framed in terms of debt. They will never get on top of the student loans, medical debt, credit card debt, car payments, payday loans, etc. that are constantly draining any excess cash they have.

The lottery is one of the few ways they could escape this debt spiral - if they could get a positive bank balance, they could begin to accumulate assets. That's not to say most people are able to do it, because suddenly having a lot of cash without financial literacy is dangerous. There's also a strong impulse to help out the people around you, which is tough because if the money is spread too thin none of the beneficiaries escape the debt cycle, they just reduce their balances slightly and then continue sliding downwards.

All that to say, playing the lottery is not stupid, it's a rational response to a society that's designed to drain the wallets of the most vulnerable for the benefit of the wealthy.

The state lottery specifically? Maybe? Though it could just be a case of the state lotteries not being targeted at the better off and better educated demographic. The lottery is also just so transparent. But I see very smart people gamble in games they don't understand well all the time. It's just fun sometimes.

The writer played a lottery, just a different kind.