Are lotteries ethical?

[Walker]

double post

[Walker]

Who teaches children to bet on golf? Do children even take an interest in golf? How old are they? Are they actually playing golf and making bets on their own game, or are they placing bets with a bookie on professional golf?

Hello Skip.

In order …

- Dad does.

- Yes, because golf is an incredible blend of mind, spirit, and body. Maybe the best in sports.

- When they’re good enough to win at betting and know the satisfaction, which is around adolescence.

- Yes to their own game, no to the bookies.

Skins wins a bet, closest to the hole wins a bet if you land on the green, birdie the hole to double the carry over that happened at the last draw. Stuff like that. You learn practical math. You learn about your mind, and others. You learn to honestly assess yourself and the situation. You learn handicapping, fairness, honor. You win some, you lose some. Wonderful sport. Builds the character to learn to walk away from what you love, for what you love more.

What little children?

The little rascals who are absorbing the world you create and who are the future of humanity.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Sorry, I first read that as immortality and spun out into a brief tangent.

But I think you’re right. Immorality has become sanctioned through what is presented for us to perceive. And there are reasons for that based on assumptions, sometimes upended but mostly drowning in holiday syrup. The trend for big budget and big spending is ripe to be plucked by a strong morality tale.

immorality is morality that you don't like.
Others think that what you think is immoral is for them moral.
Sadly most think that what they think is moral is moral for all.

[Skip]

[Who teaches children to bet on golf? ]
- Dad does.

Ah. The middle-class dad with the wherewithal - in time, money and patience - to take his children to a golf course. I should imagine, from the average income of lottery ticket buyers - which is well below country club level - and from the population of the golf course I drive by on weekends - which is predominantly grey-haired white male - that that's a very small minority. I doubt it will change the moral tenor of the nation.

[Do children even take an interest in golf?]
- Yes, because golf is an incredible blend of mind, spirit, and body. Maybe the best in sports.

Maybe so, but I've only ever met one person under 30 who didn't find it a stupendous bore. Have never seen a child play it.

[How old are they?]
- When they’re good enough to win at betting and know the satisfaction, which is around adolescence.

So, not little children, then. And they're not learning to gamble so much as to handicap.

While irrelevant to the government's role in promoting self-destructive behaviour, this was illuminating on the subject of golf psychology.

[tbieter]

A lottery is neither ethical nor unethical. Only the act of a human being is ethical or unethical.

The only gambling I have ever done was to buy a raffle ticket at the request of a friend. I think that I won twice.

I've been interested in the miniscule odds of winning.

And I've been aware of http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/inde ... -s-fallacy

[Hobbes' Choice]

A lottery is neither ethical nor unethical. Only the act of a human being is ethical or unethical.

The only gambling I have ever done was to buy a raffle ticket at the request of a friend. I think that I won twice.

I've been interested in the miniscule odds of winning.

And I've been aware of http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/inde ... -s-fallacy

In the British Lotto, you have to chose 6 numbers from 1-60. If you ask a person to choose 1,2,3,4,5,6 and ask them what chance that choice has, most would suggest never choosing consecutive numbers of the grounds that they would never come up. Then, you ask, why do you play at all They cannot conceive that ANY six numbers have exactly the same chance as 123456.
When they figure THAT OUT then they have an idea of the odds.