Want to see something scary? https://www.businessinsider.com/powerball-mega-millions-how-...
Per capita lottery spend by state: Massachusetts @ $761/year. West Virginia @ $594/year. Georgia @ $391/year.
Per capita lottery spend by state: Massachusetts @ $761/year. West Virginia @ $594/year. Georgia @ $391/year.
(Of course the entities buying these tickets are not necessarily "Californians", just thought this was an interesting take on "per-Capita" investment in a different sort of lottery ticket. It is also funding amounts, rather than opportunity costs people "invest" in these companies by working for reduced or no salary in exchanged for equity - which is the "cost" of the lottery ticket people usually talk about on HN. I just found the resulting number in this exercise really interesting and thought I'd share.)
[1] https://tech.co/10-best-states-startup-funding-ranked-2017-0...
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=california+population+2017&o...
However, I think that's the gross spend. If a lotto system has a lot of little prizes it could inflate those numbers quickly. You might not win the $1.6B, but if your tickets win $1 or $2 on a regular basis then your net outlay could be quite a bit less.
Effectively each ticket might only cost $0.25 instead of $1 because you get $0.75 back on average. On this chart it would look like you spent the full $1 each time because it doesn't include winnings.
Is that per capital lottery spend just total sales divided by population? The more interesting statistic would be average spend by people who buy at least a ticket a month. I'm sure the $761/month is brought down by people who buy 0-5 tickets a year.
Reminder that 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense[1].
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-house...