Lawsuits have become more common and verdicts increasingly generous. Bankruptcy filings have nearly doubled from 718,000 in recessionary 1990 to 1.4 million in booming 1998. But there is a cost. The jackpot idea tends to undermine the connection between effort and reward, and the costs of playing the jackpot tend to be invisible or understated. Bankrupts who evade paying their debts don't consider that all debtors will end up paying higher interest rates.
Gamblers tend to remember winnings and to forget losses.
Regular lottery players, almost all low income, don't have to write a check for all their tickets for a whole year and weigh that sum against the possibility of hitting the jackpot. But that is exactly the weighing that would have to be made by auto owners every year under auto choice.