Poor people have many bad habits: they eat too much junk food, they don’t exercise enough, they have poor money habits, they watch too much TV, they don’t read books, they waste too much time on the Internet, they drink too much alcohol, they have relationships with the wrong people, and … they gamble more than any other socioeconomic group.
As many of you know, I’ve been studying the rich and the poor since 2004. My Rich Habits research has been seen by close to 100 million people in 27 countries around the world.
But, according to my research, when it comes to gambling, the poor actually have a legitimate, logical rationale for engaging in the gambling Poor Habit.
In a 2008 experimental study published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision-Making, the authors of the study concluded that the poor gamble more than other socioeconomic groups because gambling levels the playing field.
You see, winning at gambling is determined by random good luck.
And this type of luck is fairly democratic – it visits the rich, poor and the middle-class equally.
Because the odds of winning the lottery are the same for a rich person as it is for a poor person, this puts the poor on equal footing with the rich. Anyone, rich or poor, can win the lottery.
The lottery gods don’t care if you live on the beach with a Tesla in your driveway, or if you live in a tent, on a sidewalk in Los Angeles.