While I agree with your main point, I'm not sure what the article has to do with it. It's sounds more like a poll on how much debt or bills the responder currently has to deal with.
the post I was replying to boiled down people's decisions as "What is the risk of getting caught and is it worth risking?"
I was linking it to mention that many (most?) people's mental model of risk is extremely conservative. They would forego an expected value 10x reward just for predictability/certainty. Similarly, I believe people weigh the "risk of getting caught" extremely highly in their heads. Far higher than it makes sense to from a purely game theoretic perspective.
However, this is probably a good thing. I like such people.
But its not just about certainty. If you have, say, $50,000 in savings, the chance at $1,000,000 sounds better than just doubling your savings. If your net worth is negative, making that positive right now sounds pretty good.
All of that to say, I dont think that poll says that much about the risk of lossing, and says much more that $50,000 is already a LOT of money to many people.
