Next month the Kentucky Lottery will be 40 years old. For years I’ve been labeling folks who play the Lottery as ignorant regarding the incredible odds against winning.
The demographics, however, are revealing. The overwhelming number of regular lottery players are poor. People who make less than $10,000 spend on average $597 a year on lottery tickets. This is an astounding six percent of their income. Since I don’t believe the poor are ignorant, I did some research.
What are the reasons why people play the lottery?
First, the American economic system isn’t fair, and lower income people know this. They are the daily victims of a system riddled with inequity. Starting in a fast food or other entry level job, you don’t have much of a career ladder. You’ll have to keep moving to other jobs to make more pay, and one entry level job simply doesn’t pay well enough to rent an apartment, make a car payment and keep food on the table. You’ll have to find a second job.
A few years of this feels endless, a hamster wheel without a hope to exit, but we’re all subject also to something called Prospect Theory. It reveals that people place a high value on the prospect of a low probability event occurring, assuming the outcome would drastically change their lives. In other words, we’re willing to take a chance on something that could make a big difference in our lives.
Higher income people wouldn’t experience the relative change from winning the lottery as much as a poor person, thus it makes sense people on the lower rungs of the income scale would play more often. And as wealth inequality grows these lottery ticket-style behaviors are sure to increase. Why wouldn’t you take greater risks if you have nothing to lose? Why not gamble on a low probability outcome if it has the ability to change your life? This doesn’t make sense from a probabilistic perspective, but it does from a psychological one.
Second, while the odds are bad, at least the lottery is fair. The psychological reasons that explain the connection between poverty and lottery play are complex. A 2008 experimental study in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making states that “it would be naive to think that low-income individuals disproportionately play lotteries due to ignorance or cognitive errors.” The researchers found that participants, aware of their low-income status, may play such unlikely odds because of a sense that the lottery is a uniquely level playing field where everyone, rich or poor, has the same chance of winning.
A sad commentary, where our American income system isn’t fair, but the lottery is – and how very unfair my initial dismissal of Lottery playing. It’s just one more symptom of the problem of income inequity in America, and assuming lottery players are ignorant is another way of blaming the victim.
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Written by Charles L. Baker, MSSW. Mr. Baker is the retired Mayor of Buckhorn, KY. Reach him at charliebaker@me.com
