Why are lotteries more popular than casino games?
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Both lotteries and casino games enjoy a great level of popularity but if we are to compare the two, it is clear that lotteries are much more popular.
Ever since being first conceived during the 1400s in Italy, lotteries remained the most played gambling form. Why is this? The main reasons are presented in the following paragraphs.
Low Costs
In order to buy a ticket for the lottery, you do not need to pay much. In most multi-state and state lotteries a ticket is just one or two dollars. As a result, players do not worry about the fact that they might lose a lot of money.
With casino games, the house always has an edge so, in the long run, you always lose money. And how much you lose can easily add up. For instance, at a blackjack table with a $10 per hand bet and a house edge of 1%, with 70 hands being played per hour, you lose $7 every single hour you play.
Even if lotteries have a house advantage of thirty to fifty percent, because of the very slow play rate, you risk less money.
Very Easy To Play
The complex strategy of poker or even blackjack can be quite intriguing but lottery games are so much easier to master and just learn. You do not have to analyze betting odds on the Melbourne Cup, the odds of hitting a flush, or any other complex term. You just pick numbers and wait to see if they win. Every single person can pick up the game fast.
To make matters even faster, with some lotteries you can use “quick picks”. You select the option and a machine will randomly select numbers for you. These are particularly used online, together with other extras to make games faster, like online scratchers.
Huge Jackpots
The number one reason why people play the lottery is that there is a possibility to win a huge jackpot. With the very big lotteries, prizes are actually worth up to nine figures. Both Powerball and Mega Millions paid out prizes higher than 1.5 billion dollars.
Serious money can be won even in casinos, of course. For instance, with Megabucks, the jackpot once reached close to $40 million. And the Mega Moolah from Microgaming had a jackpot going over $21 million. However, these are still much lower than the huge jackpots we constantly see with lotteries.
The Mainstream Acceptance
When talking about casino games, they are often vilified and criticized as they are considered to be very addictive. It is often mentioned that slot machines can easily hook gamblers while other games, like poker, have always been considered to be negative in one way or another.
With the lottery, not much criticism exists and the game is practically accepted by everyone. Also, a large part of revenues goes towards very good causes. This is because governments and states actually use most of the lottery gains to fund worthwhile causes, like senior centers and school programs.
Basically, nobody will criticize you for playing the lottery but there will be people criticizing you for playing casino games.
