Why do workers buy lottery tickets? A note on gambling, labour contracts and the utility of leisure

Omar Chisari

No 2020-52, Documentos de trabajo del Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política IIEP (UBA-CONICET) from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política IIEP (UBA-CONICET)

Abstract: When asked why they buy lotteries tickets, many people say that if they were to win, they would quit their jobs and enjoy life with the money. Curiously enough, the value of quitting the job, that is the gains of additional free time, has not been taken into account as a reason to understand gambling. That is, the utility of leisure has not been paid the attention it deserves to explain why people bet and the focus has always been put only on the utility of wealth or income. It will be shown here that a combination of value of leisure and inflexibility of (voluntary) labour contracts can be a sufficient condition to explain the preference of workers for gambling.

Keywords: Workers; Gambling; Leisure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D86 N81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-upt
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