The Lottery: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

I know this is a 9 year old video, but I love David Mitchell's description of the lottery "It's a tax on hope." That is what I repeat to myself when I see the potential winnings.

John Oliver should gambling/ lottery for Australia. Poker machines are everywhere and every major sport is sponsored by a sports betting app

Of thwre is one thing that my grandpa taught me, is that the lottery is nothing more then a waste if money.

So it’s just a way for business owners with government connections to lower corporate taxes? Nice, thanks U.S.

Americans are spending more money on the lottery. than they do on America that's the truth. gamblers have no self control it's amazing that they can get through a single day without going off scale. you dumbass motherfuckers get some self control. adding the lottery to cellphone's is a real brilliant idea. there won't be a person in this Country with a dime in there pockets.

The lottery knows every combination of numbers picked before the numbers are picked. A few magnets and only the numbers they want will be picked. Much like the NFL, imagine betting on a game knowing the NFL controls the gambling sites, the media, the officials, and most importantly, the final score!!

They found that fixed odd betting machines - I think they have roulette etc on them... - anyway, they are more addictive than cocaine. And granted, cocaine is miles from greatness, but it's presumably pretty difficult to blow 25k in an afternoon on just cocaine.
Gambling absolutely should be regulated, not managed, by authorities. That includes sports sponsors and adverts.

No one gonna mention Jonhny "sad fact check" Oliver is missing a tooth?

i once did a drver change at a casino ( there free coffee sucked) .
but there was this old lade working a slot machine she looked board out of everything . this was at 3:am. she was blowing her ss check. can you say addicted..

Damn funny

i only met 3 ppl in my life who won the lottery, one dude got the 12k/month for life(at age 56), my grandma once got 15k(having a permanent ticket for 30+years), and another lady that got 8 million at age 85!
but lottery, as awesome as the idea is of winning millions, its just more unlikely then reality!

The lottery is a tax on the stupid.

I sell lottery tickets everyday where I work and 3 people used buy multiple of them in the same day and use the money they win to buy more. In fact one guy won a hundred bucks and used all of that hundred dollars to buy more lottery tickets only to win that hundred dollars back.

That last bit hit a little hard in NH.

Complete waste of money. I’ve never bought a lottery ticket.

Singapore sling or Kentucky derby

Out of two billion public, state can authroize 100 million public at a time to receive 2 cents on the dollar from all 2 billion public for each individual ($0.02*2,000,000,000), but again, stressing that 1.9 billion public will lose out per half-decade, so stock market inequalities are better though UPI fixing plastic cards

It's a tax on people who don't understand statistics

This early show is so cute the way is "borrows" heavily from a 60 Minutes piece. Thank goodness John and the team eventually learned how to do their own work. You ain't winning any Emmys with this hack crap.

The lottery feeds into the ego all while making you feel like it's going somewhere good. They just keep it to themselves

Hm. It never occurred to me that crossing your fingers is for good luck, and for when you're lying... 🤯

Im 37 and when I was a kid, lets just say I was good at maths. By the time I was 15 I'd figured all this BS out. Realistically you're never going to win it, not at those odds!
The gotta be in it to win it bollocks is constantly being thrown at you in all their ads. Because my maths teacher was awesome, I was able to see right through it.
The 1 thing that really gets me is a family friend has her 'lucky numbers' she plays every week. Thinking that they'll eventually show up. That's not how it works! Every single draw has the same odds. Just because you play the same numbers every week has no influence on whether they'll show up in later weeks.
I can't stand the concept of the lottery, it is literally just a tax on the poor. Where that wasted money could be spent on something useful.

Lottery money goes into the pockets of congressmen and their families period.

Got buy got hope!

When I finished watching this video it played an ad for FanDuel Casino.

A ripoff. Was supposed to be for the public school system but they just put it into the NC state general funds and the schools don’t get any more than before the stupid lottery.

Oregon lottery machines. Oh, no other states copied them?

My mum always called the lottery "The optimism tax"

he drops the F-bomb too much. unfunny & lazy

US lotteries lie about the prize: "win $1m" but they pay you $20k a year for the next 50 years. the net present value of that is only $600k, not $1m. give me my million bucks you liars

When you have nothing 2 bucks for a new life is worth the chance.

It is only a dream away!😢

Where does the money go? Politician's pockets?

Bro standing 10 toes down

Or like lil Wayne would say:,, half a billy''

A portion of thr sale everyone wins thank xou for being a friend

9 years later, realizing Sparkshark Gillionaire would have been a better title.

go buy something instead of gambling and at least you got some guaranteed victory.

"Channing Tatum has passed"
😂😂😂

Keep exposing John Oliver !

Boy do you expose our best liars

The American Dream(™️) not happening and trickle down not working for you? Play the lottery to at least have a 300,000,000 : 1 chance of making it in life!

What I always wondered is who gets the business concession and how much do they pocket ?
Starts w M and ends with afia ?

I know it's the last line but I'm watching this while drinking alcohol from my provincial liquor control board... 🙃

The Sipper's Manual
Unfortunately, there is no manual on how to sip, except for sparse church lessons, old backpacking manuals, and wine enthusiasm, which is pure deception as wine is only bad grapes and sugar left to rot then sold in a fancy bottle for a markup.

The awful truth is that to sip through life as a way of living is to live a long and prosperous life, while to guzzle and gulp is to experience tragedy ten-fold. Sipping does not only apply to wine, or water. Sipping is a way of life and concerns everything including money and learning. Deep in people's minds they have a vague dream about someday joining the sippers.

The proof on this is difficult to collect and, therefore, most people who attempt to sip end up in miserable failure. Why sip? Why not guzzle and gulp? This requires careful observation untestable by scientific scrutiny, though some sparse science would lend a hand. The awful truth is that sipping is everything and its really just not available to a mass audience. To sip is to be like steel. It is like the refined edge of winning at playing cards where every decisive move gains in odds in one's favor.

In westerns they would make you guzzle because they knew it meant death, then they would kill you if you sipped. You were dead either way. So. Guzzle up! Guzzlers die halfway through the game. One may try and guzzle a few to collect the result. I think you know where it ends up. People try and force themselves to sip, therefore it doesn't work. Instead, keep it in the back of one's mind fermenting until it develops in truth, then you may eventually sip with ease. If guzzling would only make more sense. Right?

The key is understanding the true measure of one's lifespan. People have a natural mathematical fallacy that life is short. one must, instead change that into life is very very long and that Karma may even place after death into the same place to repeat and endless cycle. One must assume they will live forever. Then naturally they will conserve life by sipping. Guzzlers assume they are going to die, therefore risk is meaningless (as is life). They see life as short while in reality life is long. They generally believe when they die they will be washed in a river until new.

This is not necessarily true. These are mathematical fallacies.
-Francis Aodh