> There are also a few who spend all their money they might have on lottery tickets, but those aren't much of the total number of people.
Is there any evidence of that? I can recall reading that alcohol consumption, for example, has a Pareto distribution skewing in favor of so-called "heavy users" (whom most of us would refer to as alcoholics). I'd imagine a lot of vice industries are similar. Is there any evidence to suggest lottery ticket purchases are distributed across a large number of infrequent, low-volume purchasers?
I don't have numbers but many years ago I worked for a lotteries company and I know one person had the responsibility (among other things) of phoning up big spenders to check if they were exceeding their means. I remember one huge spender being an off-shore syndicate.
The company (and most lotto companies would be the same I'd guess) had little interest in taking money from problem gamblers too because in most cases their business is a monopoly so they're making good money anyway, and enabling problem gamblers would almost certainly be a breach of their license, so they'd be up for big fines (or in an extremely unlikely scenario, loss of their license). Contrast that with horse and sports betting companies where there's lots of competition and slim margins, so if you want to make money you need to take a bit from the problem gamblers.
That said, it probably is a Pareto distribution, but skewed: maybe 95% low/normal spenders, 4% syndicates/big spenders with means, 1% problem gamblers.
Is there any evidence of that? I can recall reading that alcohol consumption, for example, has a Pareto distribution skewing in favor of so-called "heavy users" (whom most of us would refer to as alcoholics). I'd imagine a lot of vice industries are similar. Is there any evidence to suggest lottery ticket purchases are distributed across a large number of infrequent, low-volume purchasers?