Lotto is a gamble, and we all know it's tempting, Even for builders, and it's a great way to make money even for builders, but some times people can't afford $1000 a ticket (such as builder) If lotto ticket's were only $100 everyone would be able to enjoy lotto, and could purchase more tickets!
-1 it's supposed to be a risk when you play lotto if lotto tickets are $100 a ticket there's no risk at all lol
The lottery would either not reach as high of jackpot, or people would just buy 10x the tickets they used to buy since we're cutting the price by 90%. I mean it's something to think about or speculate with, but ultimately I wouldn't recommend it.
I held a neutral position towards this suggestion. Well, at least until this reason was used. Now I am opposing it. Let's do the math... I'm going to base this on a jackpot size of about 50,000$. There are, of course, much larger (six digit) ones and much smaller (4 digit) ones, so I'm going to take this as an 'average' value¹. Using the normal price of 1000$ per ticket, this implies that we have 59 tickets in the pot². Let's assume that - out of those 59 tickets - one belongs to a specific builder. This builder has a chance of about 1.695% of winning 50,000$. At the same time the chance to lose 1,000$ is at an overwhelming 98.305%. Now, I'll be honest: I have absolutely no idea about the potential psychological effects of such a price change. Situation A: Everyone buys ten times as many tickets as before. Great, we didn't cause any problems. At the same time, we didn't cause any benefit. 10 out of 590 tickets now belong to the specific builder, the percentages remain unchanged. ...why exactly did we do this? Changing arbitrary prices can have surprisingly irrational effects on people, so I've decided to add the following two scenarios. Situation B: Most people buy slightlymore than ten times as many tickets as before. Let's assume that 10%³ more money enters the lottery due to panic about recent changes, et cetera. Instead of 59 tickets at 1,000$ each we now have about 649 tickets at 100$ each. Assuming that the builder decides to invest as much money as before, they now have a chance of 1.541% to win a pot of 55.165$. If they take advantage of the reduced costs and buy one ticket, their chance is at a tiny 1.541‰. Fantastic. Their chance of winning is now smaller than before. That's not really what you would want from a suggestion that is supposedly a 'great way to make money'. Situation C: Most people buy slightly less than ten times as many tickets as before. Let's assume that 10%³ less money enters the lottery due to panic about recent changes, et cetera. Instead of 59 tickets at 1,000$ each we now have 531 tickets⁴ at 100$ each. Assuming that the builder decides to invest as much money as before, they now have a chance of 1.883% to win a pot of 45.135$. Or 1.883‰ if they only bought one ticket. ...oh, and we have caused a slight imbalance to the relation of inflation and deflation by reducing the absolute daily lottery tax. The scenarios may feel different, but in the end it's all the same - losing 0.15$ for every EcoDollar you put into the lottery in the long run. Greetings from lotto tax. Lotto is - at least when taking statistical probability into account - not a "great way to make money", especially not for new players who require more time to earn money from mining/farming with suboptimal tools. The lottery is a game for players who want to have a chance of winning a lot of money if - and only if - they are willing accept the chance of losing the money they worked for. Lowering prices does not help. ¹ Yes, this is a completely arbitrary number in the range of four to six digits, hence the use of quotation marks for 'average'. ² Or, to be accurate, approximately 58.823529 tickets. Using an even number for the pot size may have been a bad idea. ³ Yes, another slightly arbitrary number. I cannot foresee the behaviour of dozens of players. ⁴ Actually there will be a slight difference because of my second footnote. Even values become pretty annoying with a lottery tax of 15%.
No matter how you quantify it, you will always be losing 15% of your initial purchase. Lotto is by no means a consistent form of income because of this reason. Therefore, the argument that lowering prices would increase the income of builders I just find to be mathematically unsound.
Alright, I'd have to say I disagree. This is a rule a lot of us should follow, but dont. (myself included) If you can't afford to lose whatever you put into lotto...don't lotto in the first place. In the end people will probably buy 10x the tickets therefore making this change have basically no effect. -1
