A DREAM IN EVERY TICKET
Experts: Mega jackpots play mind games with bettors
Lottery players chasing the $1.6 billion Mega Millions world-record jackpot aren’t just trying to get rich, they’re chasing a dream, experts say.
“It gives a chance to kind of live the life you imagine it would give you,” said Dr. John Sharp, a psychiatrist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It’s a ticket to a dream.”
Rick Lane, an attorney and lifelong Southie resident, stopped by The Hub, a local liquor and convenience store where he spends $15 a week on Mega Millions tickets.
Using a list of winning numbers from the past year, he’s developed his own strategy for playing, he said. If he hits the jackpot this time, he plans to give billionaires Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett a call for advice about how to spend it.
“I’m just trying to get it down to a winning formula,” Lane said. “If I had a history of being successful, I’d probably double down. I could give up my day job.”
Sharp said fantasizing about winning is common among lottery players.
“Even though this is a mass event — we’re all tuning in to the same show — it’s actually very private, and people do all sorts of things in private,” Sharp said. “It’s irrational, and a lot of our inner life is irrational. It’s something we can pull off or get away with.”
“When people play the lottery, the reward center in the brain gets activated,” he said, “and that can eclipse people’s judgment. Dopamine — the brain’s principal reward neurotransmitter — can essentially hijack our rationality.”
Kevin Bennett, an assistant teaching professor of psychology at Penn State University, said there are several reasons people play the lottery:
Unrealistic optimism about statistical probabilities: You believe the winning ticket just might turn out to be yours.
Availability bias: You believe something is more likely to occur because you read about or see on TV people who have won.
Superstitious thinking: You believe if you play something long enough, eventually you are due to win. “But that’s simply not true,” Bennett said. “It’s called gambler’s fallacy.”
Illusion of control: You think if you choose your own numbers, you’re more likely to win.
In Massachusetts, the lottery can be especially enticing because the state pays out in winnings about 70 percent of what is spent on tickets, compared to about 50 percent in some other states, said Rachel Volberg, a University of Massachusetts Amherst sociologist who is studying the social and economic impacts of casino gambling in Massachusetts.
Even though the lottery is the most common form of gambling in Massachusetts, she said, it’s often not perceived as gambling because of the way it’s priced and marketed.
“People might not realize they’re more likely to get hit by lightning,” she said.