I was talking to a person today who told me that when it comes to playing the lottery she specifically budgets for it every week with its own spending category. In general, she treats it more like an investment as the mindset is eventually it may pay off big time as if you are investing into a start up company or some kind of stock investment.
I personally always seen the lottery as an entertainment type of spending habit as opposed to an investment one. I think by classifying it as entertainment you are less likely to treat these kinds of things as your way to get out of whatever negative financial situation you are in too. As well, I feel this would make you more inclined to sacrifice one unnecessary spending habit for another as opposed to justifying them all to the point where you will have nothing left for the essentials.
Like in this case, if you want to buy six dollars worth of lottery tickets this week then that means you need to sacrifice say six dollars in movie tickets. Sounds pretty straight forward, but I know many people would rather give it more importance since there is a chance that it can pay off big time.