Lotteries Are a Sucker’s Bet and a Gift to the Ultra-Rich

If there’s anything the world desperately needs right now, it’s another billionaire—and with any luck (see what I did there?) America’s already immense wealth gap will grow just the teensiest bit wider after Friday’s Mega Millions lottery drawing!

For the fifth time in its history, the Mega Millions jackpot has ballooned to more than $1 billion. The good news for the grand prize winner is that the myth of a “lottery curse” turns out to be nothing more than exactly that—a myth. The bad news is the winner will definitely not be you. Or society.

Let’s start with the good stuff. Most of us have heard tragic horror stories about people whose lives took a nosedive once they struck it rich. There’s the one about Jack Whittaker, who after winning $315 million in 2002, lost a daughter and granddaughter to drug overdoses; or Craigary Burch Jr., who was murdered in 2016 after his $400,000 lottery win.

Read more at The Daily Beast.