Is $1 too much to pay for a couple of days of pleasurable dreams about what one would do if one won? Don’t we think that such fleeing from reality has some value to the one entering such a fantasy, a suspension of the rules of the real world?
Even if that’s the justification, you can do better: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hl/lotteries_a_waste_of_hope/ It’s not clear that lotteries are a good use of time: you aren’t thinking 24/7 about your dreams, you dream for maybe a few minutes total, and from that perspective, $1 is far too much to pay when you can, say, download a totally engrossing movie from the Internet for $0. And that argument still serves to ban more gambling than say $10 a day, which many gamblers routinely violate.
Even if that’s the justification, you can do better: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hl/lotteries_a_waste_of_hope/ It’s not clear that lotteries are a good use of time: you aren’t thinking 24/7 about your dreams, you dream for maybe a few minutes total, and from that perspective, $1 is far too much to pay when you can, say, download a totally engrossing movie from the Internet for $0. And that argument still serves to ban more gambling than say $10 a day, which many gamblers routinely violate.