DonShock said:
...I'm spending the $$$ for the few minutes of dreaming about what I would do if I actually won. ...
Ditto...and the amount of daydreaming entertainment you get has gone down sharply since state lotteries first started. I remember (decades ago), New Jersey only drew the lottery twice a week, so if you could get 3 days of daydreaming for your $1. Now with scratchers, it's down to about a minute, so you're definitely getting gypped.
Years ago, one of our (armed) security guards was dreaming about a big California lotto jackpot at the time. I told him I had an engineering algorithm to improve his odds. I said:
Every day, write down a lottery number and put a dollar into a jar. If the number didn't hit keep the dollar and be a winner. If the number ever did hit, then he should take his gun out and shoot himself in the head.
I said (and still believe) that chances were excellent that he would come out ahead this way.
Don't know if he believed me.....