Few people would make the case that we should encourage gambling. But what if gambling could be used as a ploy to improve road safety, recycling, school attendance, the financial well-being of citizens, and society as a whole?
Tonight, the winning numbers of a record-breaking $640 million lottery will be announced. The monster jackpot is causing a frenzy across the country, with players waiting up to three hours to buy tickets at “hot” stores and math nerds debating whether it’s worth buying a ticket.
Consumer activity gives a good indication of how the economy is holding up, and here are five trends indicating that consumers are having a particularly hard time lately.
Every so often, people manage to find sudden wealth, whether through inheritance, winning a prize, or selling a business. “What should I do?” these folks ask. “I’ve never had this much money before.”
Without ever winning an actual jackpot, a small group of bettors has managed to milk a game called Cash WinFall for millions.
Talk about a million-dollar body: In a new poll, nearly one-quarter (22%) of Americans say they would rather have their dream body for the rest of their lives than win $1 million in the lottery.
For marketers, these and other low-stakes games of chance are goldmines: Consumers buy in time and again even though the odds of winning anything meaningful are horrendous.
In nearly all cases, a dollar gambled isn’t going to make any of your dreams come true. There’s nothing new about that. But what is new with the lottery?
A sleek new jet-black lottery ticket was designed with ritzy images of Johnnie Walker Black, the elite American Express black card, and Lotus Formula One race cars in mind. The $5 lottery ticket is being introduced in ads with fancy script fonts, and on first glance you might think they’re marketing decadent chocolates or gourmet [...]
Gambling is widely considered to be recession resistant. When times are tough, people may in fact be more likely to take a chance. Sales of lottery tickets, for instance, were up in most states. So why have state tax revenues from gambling dropped?
With few exceptions, people are spending less nowadays. But there are exceptions to the spend-less rule. So what sorts of things are we actually spending more on of late?
