Let’s talk about the lottery vs savings debate

For any one person who loves to play the lottery, there’s another person who equally loves to chide them for throwing their money away. This is a battle of ideologies.

One says that someone has to win, and if that person is me, then all my fantasies can come true. People who follow this line of thinking will often think of all the ways they’d go about spending, savings, investing, and even giving away some of those winnings.

As hopeful as the first mentality might be, the other way of thinking takes a decidedly more glass half full kind of approach. They will actively argue that the likelihood of that winner being you is astronomically not in your favor. Therefore, by purchasing that ticket you might as well be flushing it down the toilet. Theses people will also follow up by declaring that if you’d put that ticket money in a savings instead, then you’d be better off financially for real.

While both standpoints have their pros and cons, theirs is an argument that will probably never end. However, that leaves us with the question, are either of them actually right? I mean, yeah, you literally can’t win if you don’t play; however it’s equally true that the vast majority of tickets purchased will not result in even a free ticket type win. I guess it ultimately comes down to what makes you happier, the hope of winning, or the knowledge you have money set aside for savings.

I guess one way to test the success of both options would be to run a month long experiment. It would be simple enough. All you’d have to do is 1st, buy however many lotto tickets you normally would throughout the course of the month. Then, once you’ve made your lottery purchase for the week, let’s say you spent $5, you will then also place $5 into an envelope for savings. The next time you purchase lottery tickets you do the same thing, and so on, for a month. Then, at the end of the month look at how playing the lotto made you feel vs. how still having the money in the envelope does. Perhaps this is how we can finally figure out which path works best for us individually.

So, how about it, are you game to try? If you do, please leave a comment below, and tell us how it went.