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That the chance of gain is naturally overvalued, we may learn

from the universal success of lotteries. The world neither ever

saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery, or one in which

the whole gain compensated the whole loss; because the undertaker

could make nothing by it. In the state lotteries, the tickets are

really not worth the price which is paid by the original

subscribers, and yet commonly sell in the market for twenty,

thirty, and sometimes forty per cent. advance. The vain hopes of

gaining some of the great prizes is the sole cause of this

demand. The soberest people scarce look upon it as a folly to pay

a small sum for the chance of gaining ten or twenty thousand

pounds, though they know that even that small sum is perhaps

twenty or thirty per cent. more than the chance is worth.