Sometimes winning is an evidence of non-rationality. For example, if one plays in a lottery and wins a million dollars, - it was still irrational for him to play as most lotteries have negative total expected utility. The same thing is with becoming very rich: most who try, fail.
Imagine the following game: You are put into a bath where you will be a) dissolved with acid with 99 per cent probability and b) you will become a billionaire with 1 per cent. Would you agree to play?
I would say that playing the game is very irrational, and any winner was likely not able to correctly calculate the odds. So extreme winning is a signal of some form of irrationality.
most lotteries have negative total expected utility.
Its quite possible for a lottery to have positive expected utility for an individual, and this was one of the cases that prompted the development of utility as a separate concept to value.
Sometimes winning is an evidence of non-rationality. For example, if one plays in a lottery and wins a million dollars, - it was still irrational for him to play as most lotteries have negative total expected utility. The same thing is with becoming very rich: most who try, fail.
Imagine the following game: You are put into a bath where you will be a) dissolved with acid with 99 per cent probability and b) you will become a billionaire with 1 per cent. Would you agree to play?
I would say that playing the game is very irrational, and any winner was likely not able to correctly calculate the odds. So extreme winning is a signal of some form of irrationality.
Its quite possible for a lottery to have positive expected utility for an individual, and this was one of the cases that prompted the development of utility as a separate concept to value.