The idea of determining fates and distributing property by lot has a long record in human history. It is mentioned in the Bible and was used by early Roman emperors for civic repairs. A lottery was also a popular dinner entertainment in ancient Rome and, later, during Renaissance carnivals.
In fact, modern state-sponsored lotteries are not as different from those early events as one might think. They have become a fixture of American life, with Americans spending more than $100 billion each year on them. The vast majority of this money goes to people who don’t win. But, despite this, states still promote lotteries, and this is at odds with the purpose of government.
In its simplest form, a lottery is a game in which numbers are drawn to determine who wins a prize. Each participant chooses a series of numbers that they hope will be randomly selected during the drawing. If a person or group chooses all six numbers correctly, they win the jackpot. If no one chooses all six, the prize amount remains the same.
While the odds of winning are low, there is a strong social impulse to participate in a lottery. It is a way to dream about the possibility of wealth that is not attainable through work and savings. In the decades beginning in the nineteen-seventies, this obsession with unimaginable wealth coincided with a decline in the financial security of working Americans. The income gap widened, job security and pensions eroded, and health care costs rose. It is not surprising, then, that people would spend large amounts of their disposable incomes on a lottery ticket.
When lotteries were first introduced to the United States, they were marketed as a way for the state to raise revenue that it couldn’t otherwise get, while providing a harmless recreational activity. It was an argument that had some validity, but it also overlooked the harms of gambling and its impact on poor people.
Today, the state-sponsored lottery is a massive industry. The companies that run it are primarily concerned with maximizing profits, and their advertising strategy is based on two messages:
The first message is that you’ll feel good about yourself because you bought a ticket. This is a misrepresentation of the facts, because the vast majority of players lose. In addition, the money they spend on tickets is far from “harmless.” It is an enormous drain on state budgets and diverts funds away from the services that most voters want the state to provide, like education and public safety. It’s time for a change in approach. We need a new vision for the role of the state in this area. And, by extension, we need a new way to view the lottery itself. We cannot continue to allow it to be seen as a benign and fun hobby that everyone should try out. It is not, and it never has been, that simple. It’s a dangerous and harmful enterprise that needs to be reined in.
