I am no fan of lotteries, which rob from the poor and those who can least afford to buy lottery tickets and give a ridiculous amount of money to one or too few people. If you have to have lotteries I’m in favor of: 1) one third of the winning proceeds going to charities of various sorts (e.g. cancer research); 2) one third in taxes to pay off various state debts and provide essential state services, and 3) one third to winners.
Playing the lottery is a form of gambling of course, and as such it violates all the basic principles of the logical and moral connection between work and appropriate compensation for that work. Spending a dollar on a lottery ticket should never produce an outcome where one ends up with millions. That’s neither a fair compensation nor is it just to all the others who invested the same amount in the scheme. But that is a debate for another day.
There can be no debate however that what you see in this video is a pretty good trick by Stan the Man. See if you can figure it out and tell me your answer. Kudos to my friend Harold Black for sending this to me.