2011-01-26
Explanation
This comic explores the hypocrisy of government-run gambling. In the first panel, a red-haired man asks a bespectacled man (who appears to be reading from a book, suggesting he is some kind of authority or expert) why it is illegal to open a casino in his house. The expert explains that gambling tends to attract "scummy antisocial businessmen," presenting it as a straightforward public-policy justification. In the second panel, the red-haired man delivers the punchline by asking: "Well then how come the government gets to run a lottery?"
The implication is devastating in its simplicity -- if gambling is banned because it attracts unscrupulous operators, and the government itself runs a lottery (which is essentially a form of gambling with notoriously terrible odds for players), then by the government'''s own logic, the government is the "scummy antisocial businessman" it claims to be protecting people from. The expert'''s stunned, silent reaction in the third panel, followed by a fourth panel where he says "Whoooaaaa..." as if his mind has been blown, sells the joke. He has no rebuttal because the logical trap is airtight.
The votey panel extends the comic'''s theme by imagining what should happen if you win the lottery: a notice that reads "Congratulations! If you wish to receive your winnings, you must write an accurate mathematical explanation of why it was still a bad idea for you to play the lottery." This underscores the well-known mathematical critique of lotteries -- that the expected value of a lottery ticket is almost always negative, making it a bad bet even for winners, since their win was the result of extreme improbability rather than sound decision-making.