I don't think anyone thinks it's a real problem for people to buy a ticket or two a month if you have the money to spend; that's a harmless indulgence. But I think most people don't realize that most lottery tickets are being bought by people who are spending tons of money from their very limited resources. Think about it: Americans spend $68 billion on the lottery each year, and there are only 320 million Americans. That's $200 a year on lottery tickets for every man, woman, and child in the country. Now think of all the people you know, like me, who spend $0 on lottery tickets a year, or the people who are buying a ticket every once in a blue moon, who are spending maybe $20 or $40 a year. So someone else is buying their share. And, believe me, the people who are buying all those extra lottery tickets are not the FI people with money to burn, because if you're already FI, why would you bother playing the lottery? It's poor people who are bringing in maybe $400 a week, and then going and spending $30 or $40 of that on lottery tickets on payday, because they don't see any other way out of their financial problems and don't realize just how bad the odds are. And that makes up a LOT more of lottery ticket purchases than most oh-i'll-buy-a-ticket-on-my-birthday casual office worker players realize. It is a tax on the poor, and I think it's awful. Not 100% sure it should be banned, for the reasons mentioned above, but at the least states shouldn't be spending millions of dollars advertising it trying to convince people to part with their hard-earned money, because, hey, it could be you!