Lotto Role Model                                              07/12/23
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A few  weeks ago, I was  walking down the  aisles of a store.  Along a
wall, the  store had  installed a  case with a  locked glass  door, to
preserve overpriced perfume from shoplifters. As I passed, I spotted a
father and his young child.  The child was pressing a scratch-and-lose
lottery ticket  against the  glass, while  scraping the  thick coating
that hides disappointment, revealing the fancy lettering underneath.

I  stopped and  watched. The  father explained  how the  ticket worked
while the  son scraped. He  told him about how  if he could  only find
just the right  combination of letters, he would  win glorious amounts
of money. They didn't really  cover probability, or shadow taxation on
the poor and uninformed. No mention of gambling addiction or dopamine,
or  anything like  that. Just  some father-son  bonding and  education
time, in the back of a local shop.

This is how  generations are built, it would seem.  Or, how poverty is
perpetuated.