The Ugly Underbelly of the Lottery

Lottery is a form of gambling wherein prizes are awarded by a process that relies entirely on chance. It’s the oldest and most common form of prize allocation and has been used in a variety of ways since ancient times. For example, Moses was instructed by the Lord to distribute land to his people by lottery (Numbers 26:55-55) and Roman emperors gave away slaves by lot as part of a Saturnalian feast.

Lotteries are a big business and can be lucrative for the state that runs them, but they have their ugly underbelly. They give people hope, however irrational and mathematically impossible it is, that they might win. And that, in a time of growing inequality and limited social mobility, is a big deal.

Traditionally, lotteries have been state-run monopolies that have raised money for a wide range of public goods and services. The initial growth of these lotteries reflected the general post-World War II belief that they could help state government expand its range of services without increasing onerous taxes on working-class and middle-class families.

The introduction of state lotteries has followed a similar pattern in most states: the state legislates a monopoly for itself; establishes an agency or public corporation to run it; starts with a modest number of relatively simple games; and then progressively expands. In the case of state lotteries, the expansion has been driven by a steady increase in demand, largely driven by a rise in disposable incomes and changes in consumer habits.