h a l f b a k e r y"Not baked goods, Professor; baked bads!" -- The Tick
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Combine the accessibility and addictive nature of scratch
tickets with the long-term financial benefits of a 401k.
Thanks for the welcome, adding more detail below
based on the comments.
I read a study stating that "households earning
under $13,000 per year – spend about 9% of all
their
income on lottery tickets".
http://bit.ly/1ipSIQL
I speculate that people purchase these tickets
because it is so easy to do (unlike investing in the
stock market). The average ROI on scratch tickets
has to be negative as the local government
typically pulls a large percentage of money from
the lottery pool before calculating how much to
pay out to participants. For example,
Massachusetts (where I live) made $251,329 in
revenue in 2012 off of instant win games (scratch
tickets).
http://bit.ly/18TFPez
Rather then take advantage of lower income
families by offering negative ROI scratch tickets,
what if local governments offered tickets that
would automatically invest winnings in a blend of
investments similar to a 401k? This would make it
easier to get money invested, just buy a scratch
ticket at the grocery store - but difficult to get
money out, winnings would go to an investment
account instead of immediate hand over of cash.
I thought this could be an interesting way to turn
a negative habit into a positive one!
401(k)
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/401(k)
not a term used much outside the USA, the 401(k) is a type of defined contribution pension scheme [calum, Dec 28 2013]
[link]
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HE SAID "GAMBLE ON YOUR RETIREMENT!" |
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Don't we already gamble that inflation will render any Government retirement plan savings almost worthless? |
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Great idea [+], I assume your saying put 50% in a 401k and 50% towards the lottery. If not, I like your esoteric nature [+] |
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Welcome to the halfbakery, JayBay. If my company
would go in halfsie, I would do this. Once. |
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Oh wait - a newbie! Welcome to the HB, [JayBay]. |
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However, as an idea, this is missing the bit after the
first sentence. |
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Well, you didn't explain how this would actually work,
but welcome to the hb anyway. |
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