In 2002, a man named Jack Whittaker won $314 million in the Powerball lottery it’s the largest single-ticket win at the time. Within a few years, his granddaughter was dead of a drug overdose, his wife had left him, and he’d been robbed multiple times. “I wish I’d torn that ticket up,” he told reporters later.

The Powerball jackpot once surged up to $1.3 billion. Billion, with a B.” One ticket, two dollars, and a heartbeat of hope. You wait in line behind someone buying gas and cigarettes, and you think, what if? Predictably, America is collectively squinting at odds and dreaming: the mansion, the car, the island, and the moment the cameras burst through the door and hand them a check the size of a door.

I don’t play the lottery. And I don’t have anything against people who play either. People who buy lottery tickets do that because they need an escape hatch. But if you’re holding a $2 or $200 ticket and calling it a plan, you’re not chasing hope, you’re chasing a fantasy.

The odds of winning the Powerball Statistically are roughly 1 in 292 million. To put that in perspective, you’re more likely to be killed by an asteroid (1 in 74 million) or be canonized as a saint (1 in 20 million, according to the Vatican’s own records). It’s even 12 times more dangerous to go buy the ticket than to win the prize. And yet, people pour in by the millions to play.

So what are we doing here? Why do otherwise rational people crowd gas stations when jackpots swell into the billions? Many people are calling it a harmless hope but what they’re really buying is most likely a pocket-sized dream they can carry around for a few days. A ticket isn’t a plan. It’s not even a prayer. It’s a dopamine drip disguised as possibility.

And like any addictive substance, the lottery isn’t free. One driving force I’ve noticed in a lot of people is being stuck. When you’re stuck with a job you hate so much, or have debt pressing on your chest like a weight, sometimes you get desperate. Sadly the lottery has become a culturally sanctioned daydream, a $2 permission slip to imagine a life where you never have to think about money again.

Yet, thinking about money—how to earn it, invest it, manage it, or give it—is one of the things that makes life feel meaningful. Take that away, and you’re not left with peace. You’re left with something far more fragile: boredom, confusion, or isolation wrapped in the illusion of freedom.

Let’s be honest, most people aren’t actually chasing the cash. They’re chasing what they think will give them autonomy, leisure, and respect. But winning the lottery doesn’t give you any of those things in a meaningful way. It often dismantles them. Your coworkers will treat you differently. Your friendships might curdle into awkwardness or entitlement. Your kids may find themselves surrounded by people who care more about the inheritance than their humanity.

There’s a reason lottery winners rarely report being any happier after their windfall. A famous 1978 study by psychologists Philip Brickman and Dan Coates compared lottery winners to accident victims who’d become paraplegic. The results were jarring: one year later, both groups reported similar levels of happiness. Lottery winners, it turned out, lost the ability to enjoy simple things like coffee, conversation, and small surprises. They’d seen the mountaintop, and the valley no longer satisfied.

Another thing you need to know is that jolt of pleasure you feel when imagining yourself with a billion dollars is that this feeling is not joy, It’s dopamine. The anticipation of a win activates the same reward centers in the brain as cocaine. It’s a hit of excitement, not fulfillment. And it’s exactly what slot machines, scratch tickets, and yes, Powerball, are designed to trigger. Over time, this feedback loop can become its own kind of drug. A harmless ticket here and there, maybe. But the mental model it installs (that money is just a lucky break away) is dangerous. It trains you to wait for fortune rather than build your future. It tells you that salvation can be bought at the gas station.

The lottery is, as one writer called it, “state-sponsored heroin.”

Additionally, We rarely talk about opportunity cost when we talk about lottery tickets. Every dollar you spend on a losing ticket is a dollar you’re not spending on something better. And no, I’m not talking about a Starbucks latte. I’m talking about $2 less in your retirement account. $2 less toward a class that could earn you a raise. $2 less invested in a life that compounds. I know this may seem insignificant, but that’s the con: lottery tickets are marketed as micro-decisions, too small to matter. But when enough people make enough small bad decisions for long enough, the macro effect is poverty of both wallet and spirit.
Another part that hurts the most is that states with lotteries consistently show higher income inequality. And most of the ticket buyers are mostly not the middle class. They’re the working poor. People who can least afford to throw money away are the ones lured in by glowing billboards promising wealth.

Happiness Isn’t Lying in a Jackpot Envelope

 “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

This quote is attributed to Roman philosopher Seneca and it reminds us that we make our own luck. You don’t need a billion dollars to be happy. In fact, it might rob you of the happiness you already have. A walk through your neighborhood, a meal with friends, the feeling of solving a problem with your own hands—these are not things money improves. They are things money distracts from.

The promise of the lottery isn’t just false. It’s damaging. It teaches you to chase what you haven’t earned and ignore what you already have. Do you want financial freedom? Invest in yourself. Save and invest your money. Learn consistently. Be willing to grow slowly. That doesn’t come with confetti and cameras, but it will come.

And one last thing,

If you still feel like buying one or multiple of that ticket for fun, let me ask you one question?
Would you be okay with losing this money and getting nothing in return? If you answer yes, fine. It’s your $2. But don’t confuse fantasy for a plan. And don’t think a billion dollars will save you from unhappiness. $1.3 billion won’t make you happy, not in the way you imagine. It will give you more options, yes. But with more options comes more uncertainty, more demands, and more existential confusion. If you’re not already content, no amount of money will get you there. If you are, then you don’t need the money in the first place.

And if, by some absurd twist of fate, you do win a billion dollars, drop me a million. I’ll remind you, daily, how good your coffee tastes.