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Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

Aggregate odds are not individual odds. About one in three of my meals are breakfast, but the odds of my next meal being breakfast are incredibly low.

If you want to convince someone that a lottery is a bad bet, you have to convince them that working and investing is a better investment for them: it's irrelevant that it's a better investment for the public as a whole. And the people who market lotteries know that, and choose who they target based on that. You'll see more ads for lotteries on the subway than you will in an in-flight magazine.

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I like this breakfast example.

BTW: Pick a random moment from a 24-hour period, and there is a better than 50% chance that my next meal is breakfast.

I firmly believe in breakfast any time of day

> Aggregate odds are not individual odds. About one in three of my meals are breakfast, but the odds of my next meal being breakfast are incredibly low. If you want to convince someone that a lottery is a bad bet, you have to convince them that working and investing is a better investment for them

Odds are odds. And I think that if people understood that they are at least 24,000 times more likely to become a millionaire by starting a business than they are by playing the lottery, they would start a business instead of playing the lottery.

and you're infinitely more likely to become a millionaire by writing code than by writing HN comments. Everybody reading this should bugger off and do something useful! :)

Depends on the code :) .

And the comments.

I am not going to become a millionaire anytime soon writing code for my employer at my rate while I might have a chance getting some inspiration through all these comments and jotting out some thoughts to push me to finally pull the trigger.

whoosh =p

I think parent's point, though, is that for many people the odds of becoming a millionaire starting a business are effectively zero. Their odds are actually greater with the lottery.

Also, starting a business is a lot of work, whereas buying a lottery ticket costs you maybe $2, so their expected ROI from the lottery is considerably higher.

Of course, that just means neither one is a good investment, but what you're really buying with a lottery ticket is the fun of imagining what you would do if you win, which isn't necessarily a bad deal for the price.

You seems to forget that starting a business requires a capital much higher than buying a lottery ticket.

While the odds are much better, the capital I need to risk/invest is much higher.

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