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Thursday, August 17, 2017

Did You Know Americans Spend More Dollars On Lotteries Than Real Entertainment?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The lottery is a waste of money, AND not fun!

You Americans apparently spend over $70 billion on state lotteries every year. If you're poor, it's because you think it'll be a miraculous way to escape poverty. If you're not poor, you apparently play the lottery because you think it's... good entertainment? What?

It turns out that consumers spend more money on the lottery every year than every other form of entertainment put together. I have a big issue with that. The lottery isn't fun, and that's extending lottery to things besides buying a ticket and waiting for the draw results. Scratchcards are boring. Instant win tickets are boring. There's nothing satisfying, in terms of gameplay, about the whole lottery establishment.

It's wise to think of the lottery in terms of entertainment value, because, of course, the odds of winning more money than you paid in are against you. Lottery is one of the worst forms of gambling in terms of both your odds of winning and entertainment value. Even the Nintendo Badge Casino is better. (I'm happy to report that Nintendo Badge Arcade will no longer have new updates, so the number of badges is now a finite UNDER NINE-THOUSAND amount.)

Since I mentioned gaming, however, I will say that there are many games out there — and it feels like most of them dwell on mobile devices or the web — that are glorified lottery systems with more interesting window dressing, except you're not paying for anything that has a possibility of getting you a return.

That's what mobile games like Fire Emblem Heroes are all about, right? They call it “gacha,” and regulatory authorities already acknowledge its similarity to gambling. I think it's called “gacha” because once you're actually addicted to paying real money for virtual crap, the game developers “gotcha.” People who know what words actually mean say it comes from the Japanese word “gashapon.”

Happy Lucky Lottery Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door buy ticket
Mario ought to blow his life savings on the lottery.
But KoopaTV readers should know better.

You could say, hey, big deal, Americans waste $5 or so every week buying lottery tickets. That adds up fast, though, and think of the much better investments of your leisure time you could do if you weren't wasting your money on the lottery.

Usage of the word “you” in this article isn't being personal, you understand. ...Except for that one right there. ...Though, if we want to get personal, take a look at this:

Georgia Mega Millions lottery ticket August 15 2017 one dollar jackpot bullet bill
This is a losing lottery ticket... owned by RawkHawk2010.

It turns out that Rawk obtained this lottery ticket without even knowing that I was writing this article. He stated that the lottery functions as a hope mechanism to get on a more sound financial footing.

...This may or may not be because KoopaTV doesn't pay its staffers. (Hey, you, reading this. Join KoopaTV's staff!

Let's look at the text on the above lottery ticket. It advertises to people who have bought this ticket to pay and play for even more lottery games. That's right. Playing games. (TODAY!) By passing off lottery purchases as games, the states are trying to make it seem like fun. And then they get repeat business... otherwise known as ADDICTION. But lottery gets to be exempt from gambling bans.

Remember the Game Corner in the Pokémon series? It was removed from Europe and got the whole franchise banned from Iran. Eventually, it was banned worldwide. All because of some slot machines rigged IN YOUR FAVOUR.

However, the in-game lottery has remained. That's not in your favour. ...I mean, it's free-to-enter, but it's still a lottery and it's always a pain in the ass to go to where the lottery is held. YOU'RE SPENDING YOUR TIME... COMPULSIVELY.

Meanwhile, the Game Corners, much like actual casinos, are a gambling experience built on ATMOSPHERE. You don't just go to a casino with $1. You go ready to lose all of the money you come into it with, like, hundreds or thousands. In return, you get that experience you can't really get anywhere else. There's casino staff who remember your preferences and give you free chips for being a repeat customer because you're loyal. (Speaking of loyalty, check out the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program!) There's buffets. You can even socialise with card dealers or other players if you're at tables — and bonus points if the casino has a bingo component. Right now, casinos are trying to attract Millennial gamers as well, so they're experimenting with skill-based offerings and even virtual reality. Best of all, casinos have great music.



If you're going to promote a form of gambling as entertainment, it should be the gambling sector that has BUILT ITSELF ON ENTERTAINING THE CUSTOMER. Not the gambling sector that is just there to leech your money while giving you nothing in return.

Don't buy lottery tickets. ...I'm not going to advocate going to a casino (you might not be old enough for that), so... buy videogames instead.



Ludwig is prohibited from promoting gambling according to Google's terms of use, but he doesn't consider comparing the worst form of gambling (lottery) to better forms of gambling as promoting the better forms. As always, the best form of entertainment would be real videogames. Ludwig has a lot of experience and knowledge about the gambling industry, but he doesn't want to talk with you about how or why.


Check out the casino on Rainbow Road!
Even if it's not a great way to have fun, online gambling should still be allowed.
What exactly is going on in Europe with simulated gambling? Here is some more detail.

4 comments :

  1. Meanwhile Spyke is laughing at those who got him rich by rerolling for triples with cash. Including me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's entirely possible that Spyke can't control what the sub-abilities are!

      ...Though, of course, he's taking advantage of that either way for profit/delicacies.

      Delete
  2. My mother and uncle both recently celebrated their birthdays and each got each other scratch off tickets. To no one's surprise, they both ended up winning nothing, not even the money they spent on them.

    On a side note, whenever I think of a casino, these two songs from the Professor Layton series will pop up in my head.
    The Gilded 7 Casino: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFhHPlVM0-8
    The Scorpion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVdcqe_V-Go

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here's the other song I was thinking of besides the Game Corner, from Wario Land: Shake It: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg2z_rDGKSw

      Delete

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