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I heard this really interesting Podcast that speculated on "a lottery ticket you can't loose principle on". To save you a lot of time explaining their story set up, I'll break it down quickly.
Credit unions (in some states) started offering accounts that pool all of the interest earned, and assign it to randomized accounts as a lottery. The program was first piloted in Michigan as, "Save to win" accounts. Basically every 25$ gets you an entry to win a portion of the "pooled" interest. Looks like in the multi-state currently, there are 4 - $5,000 winners, 24 - $1000 , 92 - $500, and 1800 $50 winners.
Freakonomica - "is america ready for a no-lose lottery?" was the podcast, they go indepth w/ a lot of statistics, metrics, and data points that show reasons to support this over lottery tickets.
In the story, they said in US $70billion is spent annually on lottery tickets. They were basically looking for a way to have people not throw away their money, while still maintaining a chance to "get ahead". It was interesting, they estimated that a significant portion of people from middle - low income, think either the only or most probable way they would ever get over (forgot number, either $100k in savings or more) would be through the lottery. And they supported that by analyzing the fact that saving the $20 or so they spend frequently on tickets (say twice a week) would take lifetimes to ever reach that much appreciation through the meager interest rate savings accounts have been offering for the past 8 years or so.
Kind of a win/win. Clever program to support peoples "Pipe-dream" of winning lottery and getting ahead in life, and in reality it's a cleverly veiled plan to motivate savings as a byproduct of the former.
Just thought it was an interesting story to share w/ everyone.
Personally I'm not a lottery ticket person. But I occasionally gamble (monthly cards w/ friends, and maybe bi-annual trip to casino that I happen to gamble).
Maybe this would be slightly thrilling spot to park a few hundred bucks that isn't ear-marked for anything.
***Sorry for typo in Title. Lose*
Credit unions (in some states) started offering accounts that pool all of the interest earned, and assign it to randomized accounts as a lottery. The program was first piloted in Michigan as, "Save to win" accounts. Basically every 25$ gets you an entry to win a portion of the "pooled" interest. Looks like in the multi-state currently, there are 4 - $5,000 winners, 24 - $1000 , 92 - $500, and 1800 $50 winners.
Freakonomica - "is america ready for a no-lose lottery?" was the podcast, they go indepth w/ a lot of statistics, metrics, and data points that show reasons to support this over lottery tickets.
In the story, they said in US $70billion is spent annually on lottery tickets. They were basically looking for a way to have people not throw away their money, while still maintaining a chance to "get ahead". It was interesting, they estimated that a significant portion of people from middle - low income, think either the only or most probable way they would ever get over (forgot number, either $100k in savings or more) would be through the lottery. And they supported that by analyzing the fact that saving the $20 or so they spend frequently on tickets (say twice a week) would take lifetimes to ever reach that much appreciation through the meager interest rate savings accounts have been offering for the past 8 years or so.
Kind of a win/win. Clever program to support peoples "Pipe-dream" of winning lottery and getting ahead in life, and in reality it's a cleverly veiled plan to motivate savings as a byproduct of the former.
Just thought it was an interesting story to share w/ everyone.
Personally I'm not a lottery ticket person. But I occasionally gamble (monthly cards w/ friends, and maybe bi-annual trip to casino that I happen to gamble).
Maybe this would be slightly thrilling spot to park a few hundred bucks that isn't ear-marked for anything.
***Sorry for typo in Title. Lose*
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