The Demand for Lotto: The Role of Conscious Selection
利用彩票滚存导致预期值变化的时间序列数据，估计了彩票需求弹性，发现玩家并非随机选号，而是有意识选择，且价格弹性接近1，表明运营商在最大化收入。
Abstract This article presents estimates of the elasticity of demand for lottery tickets using time series data in which there is variation in the expected value of a lottery ticket induced by rollovers. An important feature of our data is that there are far more rollovers than expected given the lottery design. We find strong evidence that individuals do not choose their lottery numbers uniformly from a uniform distribution—that is, conscious selection. We use our estimates to derive the inverse supply function for the industry, and this enables us to identify the demand elasticity. We find the price elasticity to be close to unity, which implies that the operator is revenue maximizing—which is the regulator's objective. KEY WORDS: LottoLotterySimulation