You may have heard of scratch tickets and lottery tickets dismissively called "a tax on the poor," or "a fine for people who are bad at math." Any economist will gladly tell you that a lottery ticket is the worst way you can spend a dollar. But why?

The odds of winning any given lottery are printed in tiny print at the bottom of the ad. But it can be hard to put those numbers into perspective. Right now, your odds of winning the Washington State Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 175,711,536.

Here are some other numbers for comparison:

• Odds of being struck by lightning: 1 in 576,000 (305 times more likely)
• Odds of being struck by lightning twice: 1 in 9,000,000 (19 times more likely)
• Odds of being stung to death by bees: 1 in 5,332,000 (32 times more likely)
• Odds of being dealt a Royal Flush: 1 in 42,000 (4,183 times more likely)
• Odds of being hit by a drunk driver: 1 in 6 (29,285,256 times more likely)

If you think about it, mathematically it's almost impossible for anyone to win the lottery! The odds that YOU will win the lottery are beyond astronomic. Buying a lottery ticket is the very definition of a "waste of money."

But in my opinion, that's not the worst part. I mean, hey, it's your money, and you get to spend it as you like. I'm a knitter, and a non-knitter would probably be shocked to hear what I spend on yarn. Fair's fair, you know?

No, the worst part about buying a lottery ticket is the emotional toll. When you buy a lottery ticket, you're telling yourself "This is the only way I will ever succeed." You're giving your entire fate over to some external force which has no interest in you, and which will almost certainly ignore your plea.

Playing the lottery means that you have given up. It means that you have surrendered yourself to futility. "There's no way I can change my situation, I can only hope that an amazing fluke will save me." You may as well lie down in the road to die.

The lottery is literally a game for losers. And you know what? You are not a loser. You have control over your financial destiny. Not over all the factors, certainly. But you have the power in your hands to dig yourself out of that hole. You just have to use it.

You may feel that there is no way out of your situation. That the lottery and scratch tickets are your only hope. But I'm here to tell you, that is not the case. You can take control of your finances, and it starts by not giving that dollar to the multi-billion dollar lottery industry that is preying on what little money you have.

So why not buy yourself a newspaper with that dollar, or save it in a jar, or even just give it to a random stranger. No matter what you do with that dollar, don't give it to the lottery. Don't give into despair.

Photo credit: Flickr/skibler