>> The lottery is, famously, a tax on people who don’t understand probability

I buy lottery tickets. Usually if I'm at the grocery store, I'll buy one.

I have some understanding of probability. I have a minor in math, I took a graduate combinatorics class. Given the rules of a specific lottery I can tell you the odds of winning it, the expected value of a ticket, and back when I was taking that combinatorics class, I could have given you a proof of those odds. Probably couldn't do the proofs now.

I also took economics classes. I remember having a discussion in micro on the conditions under which it would be rational for someone to play the lottery. They're pretty obvious.

There's a condition called "engineer's disease". One symptom of that terrible terrible disease (along with a general disgust with humor and sarcasm) is that everything under discussion must be converted into the nearest available math problem. I think, sad to say, that the person who originated your famous quote probably had a bit of that condition.

Or maybe I'm just a stupid guy who buys lottery tickets because he can't math.

Those type of conditions are usually temporary things like you lost your wallet and have $3 and all the sandwiches at the convience store are $6.