America is in the midst of Powerball fever. And it’s not hard to see why. The potential value of a winning ticket went from $40 million in November, to $800 million last Saturday night, to an estimated $1.3 billion as I record.

In interviews everywhere, people are fantasizing about what they would do with all that money. Many are admitting to buying tickets in bulk. Though in one a refreshing change of pace, a woman at a supermarket told a colleague that she wasn’t playing because, “No one needs that kind of money.”

Well, she’s definitely in the minority. People are lining up to buy, despite the fact that the chances of winning are astronomical: one in 292 million. In miles, that’s more than three times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, what astronomers call an astronomical unit or AU.

Now, if all that was happening was a bunch of people throwing away a couple of bucks on astronomically-long odds, it wouldn’t warrant comment. But that’s not the only thing going on here. As ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser recently said on his radio show, it’s clear that “the lure of easy money affects the segment of the population you wish it [that] it didn’t affect.”

Continue reading BreakPoint – Powerball and the Moral Deficit: Bad Odds for the Poor →