Why the Lottery is a Good Investment

When I bought my morning coffee today I noticed that the Mega Million jackpot stood at $289 million!  That’s $289 million! Wow!

However, many say that, given the gazillion-to-one chance of actually claiming the jackpot, only complete fools would bother wasting their money on a lottery ticket.

I beg to differ, and as a registered financial adviser, I think my opinion should hold some weight. A good investment is one that delivers a benefit in excess of its cost. That benefit could be in the form of cash or some other good, such as enjoyment, knowledge or some other kind of fulfillment.

I believe a lottery ticket provides two potential streams of enjoyment:

• ·       A huge monetary award
• ·       The fun of thinking about what you would do if you win that huge monetary award

Obviously, most of us will not win the lottery, but how many of you have not taken advantage of the second benefit?

I for one make it a practice whenever I buy a lottery ticket to lose myself in a brief reverie of how much money I would win in a lump sum after the state’s cut and income taxes. I think about how I would invest the money and spend the money and alter the lives of my nuclear family to enable us to realize all our dreams and wishes.

In other words, I allocate 10 minutes of my time to dream, which I consider a cheap form of entertainment. From a monetary standpoint, a $1 lottery ticket providing 10 minutes of pleasurable dreaming comes out to an expenditure of only $6 an hour (60 minutes/10 minutes= 6 x $1= $6.00/hr.). Compare that to other forms of entertainment.

• $15 ticket for a 2- hour movie: $7.50/hr
• $100 ticket to a 3-hr Yankee game: $33.33/hr
• $50 two-hour meal at a fancy restaurant: $25/hr.
• $4 ice cream cone (takes 15 minutes to eat): $16/hr

So if anyone tells you that buying a lottery ticket is a waste of money, challenge them to come up with a more economical way to spend their entertainment dollar!