One of my great grandfathers called it a gullibility tax, but I'm not so sure it's as bad a deal as straight stats make it out to be: a buck a week is pretty much negligeable -- indistinguishable from background noise. In this sense, however low the odds of winning, the utility of a win can outweigh the practically-zero utility of that weekly buck. Obviously, this applies more the wealthier you are.

For the less well-off, I've been wondering for a while whether an anti-lottery might be viable (aside from those pesky right-to-life we-know-best-what-human-dignity-is type laws). In a sort of despair tax, imagine signing up for a monthly minimum wage supplement -- until your number is called. If and when it is, you've already agreed to become a volunteer organ donor, and you will shortly be visited by the grim repo... Periodic medical checkups to ensure viability, and secret drawings to reduce asset hiding.

Giovanni