lotteries are gambling’s most fantastical form, with worse odds than any casino game. The lottery business is all about selling ridiculous long shots to magical thinkers. What’s more, government-run lotteries were specifically tweaked to exploit the psychology of fantasy. Scratch-card tickets—Four correct, I almost won!—essentially tricked bettors to keep buying, and computer-generated ticket sales gave the illusion of control over random chance.
