Falling for the Lottery Trick When 24-hour news channels debuted, we wondered how they'd fill up the time. Now we have an answer. Just consider the life-changing stories that appeared during the last week: Clearly I've been doing it wrong for years. Instead of focusing on boring things like saving enough, being broadly diversified and keeping fees low, I should have been touting the virtues of buying foreclosures with the money in my I.R.A., or even better, buying lottery tickets, right? Just consider the expert on display in CNN's lottery story, Richard Lustig, per Mr. Salmon: Richard Lustig is a get-rich-quick hack with no idea at all of how to beat any lottery. Yes, he's won an impressive number of jackpots. But he also advises that one third of all your winnings should be "reinvested" into lottery tickets - which means that he's betting an enormous amount of money every week. He never gives any indication of what his ROI is; indeed, he never actually comes out and says that he's a net winner. Neither can I see any indication that all the money he's gambling is his own. Spending money on lottery tickets is a stupid idea, but pretending that it's actually a reasonable way to invest money is ludicrous. Yet here we have CNN presenting this story as legitimate financial advice. It was on the CNN Help Desk, for heaven's sakes! This would be really funny if it weren't for all those people who do buy many lottery tickets, convinced as they are that there is some hope that they will pay off. Maybe because it's so outrageous we'll learn the lesson: Even if you find this entertaining in some sick way, it is certainly not financial advice.