The lottery is a popular form of gambling, with Americans spending an estimated $100 billion a year on tickets. It has a long history in the United States, both as state-sponsored games and privately run ones like the one that Shirley Jackson wrote about in her short story “The Lottery.” The lottery, she wrote, is an example of human evil, with its many sins of hypocrisy and selfishness.
Despite the fact that people know the odds are long, they continue to play. Leaf Van Boven, a psychology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, says that’s because there are some psychological motivations at play. For instance, people tend to overestimate the likelihood of something happening, a phenomenon known as decision weighting. People also often think about counterfactual scenarios — imagining what might have happened if they had done things differently. That can make them regret their choices.
In the case of a lottery, it’s also easy to get carried away with all the ways you might win. There are all sorts of quote-unquote systems that supposedly increase your chances, such as choosing your birthday or other lucky combinations. There are even experts who recommend buying more tickets, or playing at certain times or in certain stores. But none of that changes the odds. Each drawing is independent of any previous or future drawings, and the results depend on pure chance.
For people who are committed to the game, and who spend a significant portion of their incomes on tickets, there’s no denying that the odds are long. But those who continue to play, even after a clear-eyed understanding of the odds, do so because there is that sliver of hope that they’ll be the next big winner.
