| The purpose of this dissertation and study is to provide an examination of the motivations and rationale behind habitual lottery play. The paper also looks at the variety of impacts the lottery has on its players.; The study has discovered that most of the regular lottery players surveyed tend to use the lottery in an attempt to improve their economic status. Among these players, however, there is a widespread lack of understanding of the principal characteristics of the lottery including independent random chance and poor odds. Once subjects gained an understanding of these salient lottery features, they often changed behavior and tended not to play the lottery again.; In addition, the study discovered that subjects experience a variety of negative impacts related to their habitual lottery play. The regressive nature of the lottery as a form of government taxation is revealed as well. This is especially disconcerting since a large majority of the lottery players surveyed hold the misconception that this government revenue generation program is instead a government program designed to assist the poor. Other negative impacts such as youth gambling, debt, family disagreements, and the deterioration of the work ethic are prevalent.; At the end of this research and analysis an assortment of possible governmental policy recommendations is proposed that could help alleviate the negative impacts of the lottery. |
