Reading brings to mind wisdom, the exchange of ideas and quiet contemplation. It does not bring to mind people who need help putting their pants on. These books change all of that.

This book contains enough compressed stupidity to erase all science as far back as the middle ages. The title alone proves the retardedness of everyone who's even touched it three times over:

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1) They had to write both Lotto and Lottery on the cover, for fear of missing half their target market. "Dur, this book is for lott-e-ry, dat sounds more fancier than the lotto we simple folk play 'round these parts"

2) The use of "everyday players" make you realize that the target market for this book is a group of folks who think of themselves as mere regular players, while a secret cabal of professionals keeps scooping all the jackpots. Why, if only these everyday players had access to some kind of inside knowledge!

3) Third. Goddamn. Edition. We have no idea what possible refinements to lotto-winning technology the author could be adding each time, short of scribbling "hahaha, oh God this is working--I can't believe it's working" all over the proof copy before sending it back to the printers. A third edition of anything hasn't damaged our faith in humanity so much since the newspapers ran their "Princess Diana--still dead" memorials in 2000.

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The back-cover blurb is an even richer treasure trove of anti-logic. Professor Smith proudly promises to reveal the secrets of interpreting your dreams with the end goal of predicting the winning lotto numbers. We hate to break it to you but if the best your conscious mind can come up with is "buy a book about how to win the lotto written by someone who has not done so," then we're guessing your mind is not an unharnessed money-making probability super-predictor.

This book is simply cruel. Buying a lotto ticket may be a tax on people who don't understand statistics, but it still provides that momentary hope--those few seconds where you get to picture yourself as a filthy rich hedonist. This book systematically harnesses and murders those hopes, telling the reader that playing the lotto is actually a valid financial strategy and something that can be worked at. When you're taking money AND killing the dreams of those with nothing to hope for but winning the lottery, you have officially reached the rank of King Bastard.

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What You Could've Bought:

An Elementary Introduction to the Theory of Probability