You are absolutely right, the lottery's tactics can be considered manipulative and predatory. There's a variety of tactics they employ which encourage continuous play. Even looking at how losing tickets always have numbers "close" to your numbers, which makes some people think they were "one number off!". They produce these colorful tickets, advertise the huge winners on social media, and then the "record profits". Politicians often cut the budget for education under the assumption that the lottery's contribution will close the gap, further increasing pressure to gain revenue. It is ironic because the low-income population are the biggest contributors of these games, yet they're the ones being exploited the most.
On the flip side, I will say the obvious positive is that it gives you a chance to turn something small into something massive. This is under the assumption that someone plays responsibly, and only buys a ticket here or there or however much is reasonable within their budget. There aren't many other ways in this world to turn a small amount of money into a fortune potentially. For example, the odds of 1 in 620k (the odds for hitting $1M) on the latest $25 Florida scratchoff is pretty incredible, and in my opinion a rational "risk" someone can take if they buy one or two a week. The moment a person gets to the point where they're feeding multiple $20 bills into the lottery machine and playing through entire books, it is time to stop or seriously assess where this hobby has gone. With the average book paying back $470/$1000, it is simply a losing proposition to keep buying in bulk. Sure buying more tickets increases one's odds of hitting the big one, the increase in chance is so marginal that it simply isn't worth it. It is far more probable that they'll regress toward the mean, being in the negative.
For most people, this isn't sustainable. It is a progressive addiction rather than regressive for some people. At our age range, we need to be saving this money for retirement or a down payment on a house. Buying a couple $20-$30 tickets weekly isn't horrible, but when it gets to the point where half or entire paychecks are going toward tickets, it is time to stop.
You are an extremely intelligent guy though Dragon, I can tell by how you articulate your thoughts on these forums. With that being said, you can overcome the scratchoff addiction. You're also a young guy. To some extent I think it is fine to be mad at the lottery, but after some period of time we need to take personal ownership and control.
@ Falster - Do you collect comics? I know some of those ancient comics have gained quite a bit of value.