Utility and the Lottery

This passage is taken almost exactly from the professor's lecture.

Logically, it makes no sense at all to play the lottery. You spend $1
to buy a ticket, and the chance of winning is so low it really is a
waste if money. But the downside (wasting a dollar) is defined and
relatively negligible.

So why do we play if the logical choice, based on statistics us that
we are wasting money? Because the choice to buy a lottery ticket is
made with our hearts, not our heads. Although the downside of the
lottery is defined as, at most, losing $1, the upside has unlimited
potential (what ever the total jackpot is for the date of the drawing).

So, the utility of playing the lottery, better thought of as "risk and
reward" is very small risk ($1), and very high reward.

But what if we changed the game? What if we had everyone write thier
name, address and phone number on the back of every ticket. We played
the lottery like normal and everyone with the winning numbers split
the prize (just like the current system). THEN we put all the other
tickets into a huge roll cage and drew one ticket.

The night after the lottery winner was chosen, whoevers name was
written on the back, the government hunted down and put in front of a
firing squad to be killed, in network TV.

Do you think that would change peoples view of the $1 lottery ticket
purchase?not the upside is the jackpot an the downside is the loss of
$1 AND the small chance your name will be drawn and you will be killed.

I bet the risk and reward would be viewed very differently by those
who chose to play the lottery. This defines Utility.