I know everybody is probably sick of hearing that the lotto is a tax on people who are bad at math, but it's far more deceptive than just a complicated expected value equation. Powerball and Mega Millions advertising the sum total of a thirty year annuity as the value of the jackpot is simply a lie. It is false. No, the Powerball is not $248 million dollars. That's literally not what the value of the jackpot is worth.

Advertisements are prohibited from being deceptive because people are gullible. If you were selling jars of tomato sauce, and when people opened them up, they find a bunch of tomato seeds, that would be less of a lie than the current promotion for lotto tickets. You wouldn't be able to say "well, everyone knows that the jars don't have the sauce yet. Eventually, the tomatoes will grow and you can make sauce with them, or we can plant them for you and send you a few tablespoons of sauce every year." You'd be laughed out of court and right into jail, because that's fraud.

You could still have the lotto without the fraud. It would still be a tax on people bad at math. $70 million dollars is functionally equivalent to $248 million, in that it's enough money to change your life forever. People could still purchase the dream of a better life for $2 each, and most of the same people still would because gambling is an addiction. You could be completely honest about how unfair the game is, and people would still happily play.

And that's what bugs me about it. It's so unnecessary. No other casino or gambling establishment could get away with something so transparently dishonest, and they don't have to while still making money hand over fist.