Originally posted on 07/16/2012:
that is usually true
check the back of the tickets, if you don't know how many top prizes are left in the batch then you can roughly figure your expected loss.
if the tickets have a 80% payback then you're essentially donating $4 out of every $20 to the state. but they are a lot of fun, so i still wouldn't necessarily consider it -ev
if you live your life worrying about how everything is -ev like nrmlcurvsrfr then you probably would never go to six flags, baseball games, or pretty much anywhere. you would sit at home where the drinks are free and there are no nuisances, and that would be a pretty shitty way to live