Many would rather waste their hard-earned money buying Powerball tickets than pay taxes.

Given a choice between handing one-third of your income over to government agencies to do various things from which you might or might not benefit, or contributing one-third of your paycheck toward a 1-in-175 million shot at collecting $550 million, most would select the latter despite the odds.

This is human nature, and while paying taxes isn’t a choice, sucker bets are entirely up to us. We like to think we’re entirely rational beings, yet there’s nothing rational about the likelihood of winning the Powerball lottery. There are plenty of rational reasons to pay taxes.