The Lotto: Tata-ma-chance, tata-ma-stupid?

According to the SA Fact-a-Day website, about half the people who visited a casino to gamble last year did not have a matric qualification. I guess that this is significant, considering that people without matric outnumber those who have it by quite a margin. I generally discard this type of information into my “useless information” folder that I only use during those long awkward silences in forced socialisation settings such as weddings.

But I found it fascinating that anyone would perform “research” linking the tendency to gamble with passing grade 12. What was the thesis in this bit of research? “The study showing the correlation between human dumbness and the propensity to throw coins down holes”? I can see no other thread linking the ability to achieve this great academic distinction and gambling. So I’m going to assume that this is what the study intended to prove.

I suppose this is excellent news for me because I do not gamble. I have a personality defect that prevents me from throwing money down a machine slot in the hope that a Good Samaritan inside the rabbit hole will throw my R2 coins multiplied a million times over back to me.

I recently wrote about the illusion of superiority that we all feel when we observe what we perceive to be irrational behaviour in others. I’m in the throes of this very phenomenon as I type this. My own irrational superstitions are forgotten for the time being.

Since the Lotto came back, I’ve been watching people buying tickets and the same thought also hit me: “Are people who play the Lotto dumber than people who do not?” I fully expect people to respond to that question by pointing out the following:

1. Playing the Lotto is not really gambling in the same sense as the activities of those Castle-guzzling guys from Boksburg who spot mullets and practically live at Carnival City.
2. My Lotto tickets pay for very good causes.
3. You won’t be laughing when I win.

My retort to these responses would be:

1. The principle is the same. You’re still shoving money down a rabbit hole in the hope that a Good Samaritan will throw back your money multiplied a few million-fold. Potato/tomato.
2. www.nmcf.co.za
3. You won’t be laughing when Oprah chooses me as her toyboy and leaves me all her money. The probabilities are just about equivalent.

Back to the question. Are gamblers dumber than non-gamblers?

One of the reasons I have so much time on my hands to write these blogs is because I’m a bit of a social pariah. That’s why I only have a handful of friends who have “kept” me around for an average of 14 years each. I have not made a new friend in the past seven years, for instance. That’s because I have the tendency to start furious, emotion-filled debates in social settings. This is an actual conversation (not verbatim, of course) I’ve had in the recent past:

Slow-witted Lottorite (addressing someone else): “Oh dear, it’s 7.47pm. I better rush off to buy my Lotto ticket.”

Me with whisky-inspired, glazed-doughnut look: “He he he. Why don’t you just throw your money down that rubbish canister over there?”

SWL: “The Lotto is not really gambling. Plus, it’s all for a good cause.”

Glazed doughnut: “Semantics. You’re just throwing money down a rabbit hole in the hope that a Good Samaritan throws it back to you multiplied a million-fold.”

SWL: “There isn’t really a person per se who chooses the winning numbers. It’s all computerised, you know. Goes to show what an idiot you are. And you’re drunk. Plus, I wasn’t even talking to you.” (And another potential lifelong friend rushes off to throw money down the drain.)

The funniest attempt I have ever heard at justifying spending R20 on the strength of the one-to-three-trillion probability that one might win R25-million came from a relative of mine. His reasoning? “Have you never taken a beautiful woman out to dinner in the hope that she would show you ‘gratitude’ at the end of the evening?”

I did not justify that poor analogy with an answer. Even as a single man, I never played the sirloin-for-favours lottery with dinner companions. When I was desperate I spiked their drinks with Niagara (it’s the traditional version of the famous drug) and improved my chances to approximately 100%, for the record.

So, am I suggesting that we ban all gambling, then? Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. One of the cornerstones of the free-market system is the creation of an environment in which the smart can take money from the not-so-smart. Otherwise how do you explain the fact that I am sitting here sipping on bottled water that someone smarter than me got from the same source as the water that comes out of my own taps? To whoever says, “But it’s treated water,” you are the poster child for why the capitalist system continues to thrive. How do you explain the fact that we pay more for cars that have wipers that switch on automatically when it starts raining? What are the chances that anyone would miss the raindrops falling on their windscreen? Wait; don’t answer that.

What’s my point? Well, I just needed to make myself feel good about my superior decisions when it comes to this specific aspect of our lives. You can go on and buy your Lotto tickets if you want to.

I’ll spend my R20 consuming a bitter, golden-coloured liquid that dissolves the myelin sheath around my brain cells and shrivels up my liver, thank you very much. The effects of that ingenious activity are 100% predictable.

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