

Could a Lottery Be the Answer to America’s Poor Savings Rate? (Freakonomics) - psawaya
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/freakonomics-radio-could-a-lottery-be-the-answer-to-americas-poor-savings-rate/

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brc
What's to stop a person opening 10 $10 accounts in the hopes of increasing
their odds?

Also, if you deposit more money do you increase your odds or payout, or does
it work on a regular deposit schedule? Otherwise there isn't much incentive to
keep saving. Can you just withdraw and redeposit the same amount each week to
keep entering with the same amount?

I think the best way to increase the savings rate is to stop artificially
underpricing money and creating inflation. I don't save cash because I know
the government is working against it. And I'm not poor or stupid.

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fuzzythinker
Didn't see the exact rules in the article, but I would imagine the more one
saves, the higher the chance of winning -- much like the standard lottery.

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d2viant
I'm not sure this is even realistic given the multitude of laws you would have
to overcome. For starters, you would have to change state laws to make this
work. Many states currently outlaw private lotteries, in an effort to maintain
a monopoly on government run lotteries.

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smh
For an example of this sort of thing, see Premium Bonds, available since 1956:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Bond>

The stuff about ERNIE is interesting, too.

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smoody
great idea!

