The lottery is a form of gambling, and gamblers have always been drawn to it in the same way that the rest of us are drawn to a jackpot or a fast car. It’s an irrational, sometimes harmful activity that appeals to a basic human urge. But there’s more to it than that: It’s a symptom of a larger problem, a denial of the old national promise that hard work and education would bring financial security and social mobility. As income inequality widened and social mobility slowed during the nineteen-seventies and eighties, lotteries became more popular. People began to imagine that they’d win the lottery and suddenly, with a few lucky numbers, have it all.
Lottery advocates responded by shifting the debate away from whether state-run gambling was good or bad and toward how it could be used to raise money for state services. Rather than arguing that a lottery would float a state’s entire budget, they started claiming it could pay for a single line item, invariably some kind of government service that was popular and “nonpartisan” — education, elder care, public parks, aid for veterans. This approach sounded reasonable to many voters, since they didn’t have to admit that they were voting for a gambling operation.
While the casting of lots for prizes has a long record in history, the lottery as we know it began in England and America, with the colonists using it to finance their settlement of the continent, despite Protestant proscriptions against gambling. In a few states, lotteries were even tangled up with the slave trade, with enslaved people buying their freedom by winning the lottery.
After the initial boost, lottery revenues tend to level off and eventually decline. A major factor is the sheer boredom of playing the same numbers over and over again, as well as the perception that a small percentage of players will actually win. This is why lottery advertising focuses on large jackpots and how much money you can expect to get if you win.
The other factor is that, although the odds of winning a particular lottery are set at random, people think they can influence them by following certain systems — quotes unquote — like picking the lucky numbers or buying tickets on weekends or during particular times of day. Some of these quote-unquote systems are based on sound statistical reasoning, but others are irrational and can lead to disastrous decisions.
Finally, a third factor is the perception that playing the lottery is a sort of civic duty. Many state lawmakers believe that, while they oppose gambling in other contexts, they can justify supporting a lottery because the proceeds benefit the state. This argument is flawed in several ways, but it has a certain ring to it. It’s similar to the argument that was made in the case of sports betting: That the money generated by legalized sports wagering is somehow beneficial to society, because it supports schools or veterans or public safety programs.