We all know that the Lottery is not going to touch us. It doesn't matter: we play to feel part of something

RockedBuzz
By RockedBuzz 9 Min Read

We all know that the Lottery is not going to touch us. It doesn’t matter: we play to feel part of something, It has always been said that the Christmas lottery is a tax on people who do not know mathematics, ignorant people who do not know the real possibilities that they have of being touched the award. But the reasons that lead us to play el Gordo every Christmas are more social than anything else: on the one hand, it is already a deeply rooted tradition in Spanish society and, on the one hand another, we fear that we are the only fool in the company who has not been made of gold by not spending those paltry 20 euros. So far so good. It is true that it is practically impossible. But the lottery is also something important: a community ritual where everyone feels better participating. And studies support this theory: we are happier if we buy. The bliss of probability. Five years ago, an article in EL PAÍS read in its headline: “I am a mathematician, and this is why why I don’t play the lottery. ” The reasons are quite clear if we take a look at the probabilities that we will get something in various draws. In the ONCE coupon, we have a possibility between 15 millions; in the Primitiva and the Bono Loto, something better, one between 13. 983. 816; even better in the National Lottery, with one between 375. 000 in the Thursday draw. Worse is if we play the EuroMillions, where we only have one chance between 75. 275. 360 to find the winning combination. And yes, even so, we continue playing even though we know we have everything to lose. The probability that you will be hit by the Christmas jackpot it is also surreal. If we take into account Laplace’s theorem applied to probability, we obtain that P (probability of an event occurring) = (favorable cases) / (possible cases). That is, P = 1 / 99. , or what is the same: 0, 00001. Each number comes out only once, so we will have 0, 00001 possibilities for each number that we buy that we touch. The important thing is to participate. Although buying lottery tickets is not a rational investment from a financial point of view, it can be for our well-being. Something that would explain why the majority of the population participates at least once a year. For this reason, a study published in Experimental Economics wanted to go further. They conducted an experiment using data from the Netherlands and found that participation in the lottery increased participants’ happiness before the draw. And winning a small prize had no effect on happiness. That is, people are not only interested in the results, but they enjoy the game. Consequently, they came to the conclusion that participation in the lottery has a utility value itself and part of that utility is consumed before the draw. Happier. One explanation is that the game of l Other in itself has utility value. There is a non-monetary or process utility to participating in a lottery. Lottery players may experience positive emotions before and after the draw that can result from the hope of a happier life, the fun and excitement of the game, as well as social bonding activities when the lottery is played together with family members. or friends. Positive emotions after the draw can originate from winning a prize , even when the prize is very small and lower than the purchase price of the lottery ticket. It is, in the end, that illusion of knowing that you are playing something. And that many close people do too. And why do we play? There are many psychological investigations that try to explain it. The doctor in psychology Kevin Bennett summarized them in an article of ‘ Psychology Today ‘, where he collected the cognitive biases that lead us to think that it is a good idea to invest a couple of euros each week in a bet. On the one hand, there is an unrealistic optimism despite the fact that the information you have should make you somewhat more cautious. In the case of the lottery, hunger is combined with the desire to to eat. Not only can obtaining a positive result cause us to win millions of euros, but our brain is unable to fully understand the probabilities we have. As long as there is a minimum probability, we are inclined to maximize it. Availability bias. In addition, we We like to hold on to the chances of winning the lottery because we have seen that there are people who win it: we all know a friend of a friend of a friend at that el Gordo touched him. Also, thanks to television and other media, we have seen their faces and heard their voices. But beware, because this bias applies to other important situations: for example, doctors who have diagnosed several cases of the same disease in a very short time have a greater propensity to diagnose it in their next patients, although the possibilities are the same. There are tricks. One is the illusion of control. It is about the tendency of human beings to believe that they can control or influence the results in which they have no influence. We all get carried away at one point or another by this logic. Just like when we ask a friend to shuffle the cards because every time he does it we get a good hand. Something similar happens when we stay within a number of the bingo game or when we narrowly miss the roulette. Although we rationally know that in the next game we have the same possibilities, Irrationally we will have more desire to play than if we had not hit any number. It happens when we choose the Lottery numbers ourselves, instead of having them filled in randomly by a computer: although the probability is the same, we have the feeling that we have sought our own luck. And social traps . Society and advertising are designed for us to spend our money on gambling. Especially if we’ve been doing it for years. All the regular players who have not been able to refill the weekly bet have suffered nightmares in which they played the combination they had been playing for years . In other words, they have reached a point where “the costs, which were initially hidden, are too high to quit.” Something similar to what happens to us when we make a queue: we have spent too long waiting to leave it, even though we suspect that the next row is going to move faster. Image: Sergio R. Moreno (GTRES) Magnet Newsletter 1539532082 Subscribe to receive every day the latest news and the most important news to understand r and enjoy the world.

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