Why you keep playing the lottery

The low cost of a lottery ticket is one of the most seductive things about it.Powerball drawing set for Wednesday night; jackpot estimated at $320 millionChances of winning are one in 175.2 million, according to PowerballPart of the allure is that everyone else is buying tickets, experts say

(CNN) -- On Wednesday night, six numbers have the power to change your life.

Maybe your kid is sick and there are hospital bills to pay. Maybe you've lost your job and you're worried about making rent. Maybe you still have a job, but it sucks, and you'd really like to spend the next 50 years lying on a beach with a mai tai in hand.

Whatever your predicament, the current estimated Powerball jackpot of $320 million could fix it. Which makes us wonder -- when it comes to playing the lottery, are we all just damsels in distress?

You're not going to win the jackpot

"Because we're in a recession, people love to have a rescue fantasy," human behavior expert Dr. Wendy Walsh told CNN in April when the Mega Millions jackpot hit $656 million. "We have the Cinderella complex -- there's a fairy godmother who's going to come in and save us."

We've all heard the statistics. Your chances of winning the Powerball jackpot are about one in 175.2 million. You're more likely to die from a bee string (one in 6.1 million), be struck by lightning (one in 3 million) or have conjoined twins (one in 200,000).

But people keep playing -- most likely because the thought of winning $320 million is much more fun than the thought of being attacked by a shark (one in 11.5 million).

"It doesn't faze them because they're in love with hope," Walsh said.

In 2010, U.S. lottery sales totaled $58 billion, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. More than half of us have played the lottery in the last year, although 20% of customers buy the majority of the tickets.

var currExpandable="expand110";if(typeof CNN.expandableMap==='object'){CNN.expandableMap.push(currExpandable);}var mObj={};mObj.type='video';mObj.contentId='';mObj.source='bestoftv/2012/08/15/exp-early-carroll-powerball-jackpot.cnn';mObj.videoSource='CNN';mObj.videoSourceUrl='';mObj.lgImage="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120815103245-exp-early-carroll-powerball-jackpot-00004201-story-body.jpg";mObj.lgImageX=300;mObj.lgImageY=169;mObj.origImageX="214";mObj.origImageY="120";mObj.contentType='video';CNN.expElements.expand110Store=mObj;Part of the allure is that everyone else is doing it, said Dr. Stephen Goldbart, author of "Affluence Intelligence" and co-director of the Money, Meaning & Choices Institute.

In a Psychology Today article titled "Lottery-itis!" Goldbart noted two main reasons why people buy tickets.

"Jumping on the bandwagon is an age-old motivator of psychological behavior," wrote Goldbart and his colleague, Joan DiFuria. "We want to be with the in-crowd, to be 'part of the movement,' not 'feel left out.' "

The second reason stems from a sense of disempowerment that comes with change -- whether it's a changing economy or a changing world.

"The map to finding the American Dream has been radically altered," they wrote. "(The lottery) lets you believe in magic: that you will be the one who spent a little and got a lot; that you will defy the extraordinary odds against winning."

Previously on CNN.com: NAACP fights to ban Texas lottery

Spend a little, get a lot -- the basis for every good investment. The low cost of a lottery ticket is one of the most seductive things about it.

The lottery industry is often criticized for being an unfair tax on the poor. On average, households that make less than $12,400 a year spend 5% of their income on lotteries, according to Wired.

In 2008, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University attempted to explain why the poor are more likely to buy lottery tickets.

The study, published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, theorized that people focus on the cost-to-benefit ratio of a single ticket rather than add up the long-term cost of playing over a year, or a lifetime.

Some study participants were given $1 at a time and asked if they wanted to spend each dollar on a lottery ticket, author George Loewenstein said. Others were given $5 and asked how many tickets they wanted to buy with the money. Members of a third group were told they could either spend $5 on lottery tickets or buy none at all.

Ted Talks: How to buy happiness

People in the second group bought half as many as those given $1 at a time. In the all-or-nothing scenario, 87% of the study participants purchased zero tickets. The researchers' findings were consistent with something known as the "peanuts effect."

"There are money amounts that are small enough that people almost ignore them," Loewenstein said Wednesday.

"It almost doesn't feel real. The lottery and penny slots are kind of the sweet spot of risk taking. They're really cheap, really inexpensive to play, but there's a big possible upside."

Still, to say that playing the lottery is a bad idea doesn't sit well with the professor of economics and psychology.

"It's ridiculous to say that 51% of the population is just irrational or self-destructive," he said. "It serves a psychological function for people. ... Our pleasure of living is not only based on our current situation, but what could be, what we can imagine our situation could become."

Irrational or not, millions will sit around their TV and computer screens Wednesday night, praying that the six numbers they're clutching will appear.

They're optimistic that the fairy-tale ending they've been waiting for will come, even if it takes a little magic.

Does winning the lottery guarantee happiness?

CNN's Nic Robertson explains why Saudi Arabia is planning a city exclusively for working women.updated 9:06 AM EDT, Tue August 14, 2012 Fernando Meirelles says the Rio Games will be an opportunity to show Brazil's energetic potential. updated 11:54 AM EDT, Mon August 13, 2012 The new President of Egypt is taking the concept of getting work done in the first 100 days in office very seriously, says CNN's John Defterios. updated 9:53 AM EDT, Mon August 13, 2012 Comedian Eddie Izzard says the moment that Team GB's Mo Farah won the 10,000 meters showed how much Britain has changed -- for the better.updated 7:21 AM EDT, Mon August 13, 2012 The prospect of lab-grown meat appearing on our supermarket shelves is closer than ever. updated 1:23 PM EDT, Mon August 13, 2012 While no country in Asia has legalized same-size marriage, Taiwan saw its first same-sex Buddhist wedding to promote the cause.updated 11:47 AM EDT, Mon August 13, 2012 He wasn't a fighter or a revolutionary, he didn't live by the gun. But 45-year-old Hassan, a shopkeeper, died from an unseen sniper's bullet.updated 5:24 PM EDT, Mon August 13, 2012 With extreme heat and the worst drought in half a century there are important lessons to be learned for all of us, says Michael Roberts. updated 10:02 AM EDT, Tue August 14, 2012 Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy's surprising move to amass substantially more power has triggered demonstrations on both sides.updated 6:27 PM EDT, Tue August 14, 2012 Mars rover Curiosity beams back a color panorama, showing a rocky, reddish desert and the mountain it will explore. Most popular stories right now

View the original article here