Even though I know that it is usually not mathematically sound to gamble,
I still play the Lotto occasionally. The entertainment value returned
for my dollar (by fantasizing for a couple of days about what I would
do with the money) is at least as high as an $8 movie.
Dan
On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Phil Mahler wrote:
> More thoughts on lotteries.
>
> It was pointed out that I may have lost in the lotteries by not
> playing. My statement was that I had never lost, not that I never
> played. So the assumption that I never played is a probabalistic (sp?)
> one. As is the statement that the sun will rise tomorrow, and I'll
> accept both as correct logic.
>
> The same assumptions about probabilities and expected values, especially
> after Brian's analysis showing negative expected values, which has to be
> true since the state takes a cut and winnings come only from money put in,
> shows that I probably did maximize my gains by not playing. In other words,
> the statement that I did not lose has the same degree of truth (high) as
> the conclusion that I never played.
>
> All of which isn't intended to convey some deep truth. What I have found
> most interesting in the discussion is that some of us don't play because
> of our mathematical understanding of the situation, and some would play
> in spite of it. In fact this is all elated to the notion that expected
> value is a very hard concept to pin down if it's supposed to model human
> behavior in some way. Clearly the pure definition of expected value
> doesn't apply to human behavior, at least in this case. I can live with
> that. After all, who ever saw a straight line, or the number one, but
> we use those all the time too.
>
> Phil Mahler
> Middlesex CC
> Bedford, MA
>