A lottery is a form of gambling in which numbers are drawn and winners are awarded money. In the United States, state governments regulate lotteries. In addition, the federal government regulates certain forms of lotteries, such as sports-related lotteries and public utility lotteries. People of all ages and income levels play lotteries, though people in lower-income groups tend to play less often. People also vary in how much they spend on tickets, with older and poorer people spending the most. Lottery profits help fund education, health care, and other social services in many states. In addition, people are drawn to the prospect of winning a large jackpot.
The origins of lotteries go back centuries. The Old Testament instructs Moses to conduct a lottery to determine land ownership, and Roman emperors rewarded soldiers with slaves by holding a lottery. In colonial America, lotteries formed a rare point of agreement between Thomas Jefferson, who thought them no riskier than farming, and Alexander Hamilton, who grasped what would become a key principle of modern economics: Everyone “would prefer a small chance of winning a great deal to a large chance of winning little.” Lotteries were even tangled up with the slave trade, sometimes in unpredictable ways. For instance, George Washington once managed a Virginia-based lottery in which prizes included human beings, and one formerly enslaved man, Denmark Vesey, won a South Carolina lottery and used the prize money to purchase his freedom and foment a slave rebellion.
New Hampshire initiated the modern era of state-run lotteries in 1964, and the practice spread quickly. Lotteries were promoted largely because they offered “painless” revenue for state governments, with players voluntarily spending their money on the condition that some portion of the proceeds would benefit the public good. In an anti-tax era, this argument seemed persuasive.
But the reality of lotteries is more complicated than a simple, “people just like to gamble.” The vast majority of lottery players do not consider their betting behavior rational, and there is considerable evidence that many do not understand the odds of winning. Some have “quote-unquote” systems that they claim to be based on statistical reasoning—about lucky numbers and store names and times of day when tickets sell better—but most are playing for the big prizes.
Another issue is that lotteries disproportionately attract low-income residents and increase the burden on these communities. In fact, some researchers have gone so far as to call them a “necessary evil.” They argue that state governments can’t cut taxes or raise other revenues because they need the money from lottery ticket sales to fund services that are essential for residents’ well-being.
Moreover, lotteries are a major source of revenues for retail convenience stores and their employees; suppliers to the lotteries; teachers (in those states in which lottery money is earmarked for education); and state legislators (who rapidly grow accustomed to the extra cash). This explains why there are few states that have repealed their lotteries.