If there were no taxes&#x2F;transaction fees (ultimately the same thing), then E(<i>any</i> lottery) would be unity. Which is <i>exactly why</i> people smugly say &quot;the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math&quot; - which the article recognizes but discounts just to state it in different terms.<p>So sure, we can hope that some day that people who desire higher variance can conveniently play non-profit lotteries which won&#x27;t &quot;cost&quot; them anything in expected value terms. And perhaps separating the nuance between &quot;losing money by playing the lottery&quot; and &quot;being taxed for playing the lottery&quot; is a step on that path. Although I think it&#x27;s likely that privacy technology solves this problem before the cathedral does.<p>But this doesn&#x27;t change GP&#x27;s implying that not buying alcohol or cigarettes is equivalent to not paying the taxes on what you have bought. I suppose this nitpick is so divisive because people either view playing the lottery as equivalent to paying a tax due to that long held adage and that most every transaction is simply giving money directly to the government, or as the act of playing the lottery with an inbuilt tax as the article has led them to. But IMHO if you want to highlight the nuance of the latter, you&#x27;d be better off pointing out how people that run&#x2F;play private lotteries are thrown in jail rather than equating tangible vices with purely throwing money away.