The UK stupidity tax (aka National Lottery) has recently been doubled in part to stem a fall in takings. The lottery supports a lot of good causes in the country and perhaps most people playing it feel good because they are contributing to these causes. Nevertheless it is clear that the expected benefit to the individual from playing the lottery is negative and as Daniel Bernoulli pointed out many years ago it is not rational to participate in things with an expected negative outcome. However most of the loss in expected value does get recycled and if people enjoy the thrill of the possibility of winning then perhaps it could be argued as rational to play.
Recent evidence suggests that players are perhaps doubly stupid as the anticipated delight from winning the lottery quickly fades and research has shown that lottery winners and quadroplegics are roughly equally happy one year after winning or paralysis.(1)
It is rather troubling that winning a fortune and losing the use of your limbs turn out to leave you similarly happy within about a year. Clearly there is therefore a case for changing the rules of the lottery and arranging for the 'winner' to get a broken neck and that way a much higher percentage of the takings could be distributed to good causes. If users primarily play the lottery to benefit good causes they would be pleased with this outcome. If it can be explained that while a broken neck might be a bit disappointing, painful and debilitating in the short term then this will quickly wear off and they will be just as happy one year later as if they had won a large fortune, perhaps most people will continue to play. Obviously it will remain very unlikely that you would be selected as the 'winner' and have to suffer a broken neck under the new rules of the lottery and indeed all former players should be honour bound to continue to play so there shouldn't be any deduction in lottery takings from this new approach. Rather than a few people being delighted after the draw and most being disappointed this approach would probably reverse the effect and the vast majority would now be happy after the draw and only a few might be a little apprehensive.
We could probably further improve the outcome for all participants by making 'winning' even less likely than it was before. Potentially there is a bit of a cost to society in terms of the care requirements of quadroplegics so making the lottery harder to win could help to reduce this cost and further enhance the solution.
I still feel the participation rate might drop a little despite the fact that people are still getting the excitement of 'winning' and having a life changing event. We could probably provide some publicity albeit it would be rather distasteful to actually show the winners getting paralysed and so it may make sense to create an option to allow the winner to elect for purely ceremonial rather than actual paralysis. This seems to be the ideal solution as the winner could get the fame and attention of winning plus the option to elect to use a wheelchair and be looked after on key occasions but otherwise continue with life as normal.
Now the amount of increased spending on good causes from this improvement is not trivial. Annual sales are over £6.5 Billion and at present 50% of this is given out in prizes (2). Changing the rules but retaining the excitement and perhaps providing some modest compensation for ceremonial paralysis could easily allow £3 Billion pounds per annum to be used to make the world better and potentially develop cures for some nasty diseases. Undoubtedly the most pervasive of these diseases is aging and as it is the root cause of so many other problems in later life and it would appear a prime candidate for some of the additional funding as we are still quite some way from finding truly successful treatments.
Sources
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