I was in Seattle last week for a lecture at the Lakeside School, an inspiring place full of very bright people. (It is the alma mater of, among many others, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Po Bronson, and Seth Gordon).
While taking a stroll in the U-Dub neighborhood, I came across this sign for the Washington state lottery. (You can read our earlier posts about the lottery — which are legion — here.) The tag line reads: “Whose world could you change?”
Stephen Dubner
It struck me as a clever come-on for a lottery: whereas appealing to outright greed may be considered a bit tacky for state lotteries, there’s nothing so noble as using your winnings for altruistic purposes, is there?
FWIW, there is room for improvement. Washington is not in the top 10 of per-capita lottery dollars spent. (The top 10 are: Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island, West Virginia, New York, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Michigan.)
There’s also a “no-lose lottery” gaining a bit of ground, which we discussed in a two-part podcast not long ago.
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