The lottery is one of the few government-sponsored gambling enterprises with broad and sustained public support. It is marketed as a way to get rich quickly, and it provides an easy outlet for people who have little or no other way of generating income. In states where lotteries are legal, more than 60% of adults report playing the game at least once a year.
State legislators have promoted lotteries as a means of raising money for the general welfare without onerous tax increases on working families and the poor. But while lottery revenues do provide a modest boost to state budgets, they also create enormous dependency on these revenues and generate significant costs that go unaddressed. The lottery is, in short, an example of an irrational and self-defeating behavior.
Despite the ubiquity of the slogan “somebody’s got to win,” the odds of winning are extremely long. In fact, the vast majority of lottery tickets lose. So why do so many people continue to play? It is partly a matter of habit. In a survey of lottery players in New Hampshire, for instance, the majority reported that they played regularly – even though they had a low probability of winning.
It is also a matter of hope. Some people are so convinced that they will eventually become millionaires, even if the chances of doing so are slim to none, that they continue to purchase lottery tickets in the hopes of becoming that one lucky winner.
Most state lotteries operate much like traditional raffles, with players buying tickets for a future drawing that may be weeks or months away. These tickets often have a single prize amount, usually in the 10s or 100s of dollars. But there have been significant innovations in the industry since the 1970s, with new games offering smaller prizes and higher odds of winning.
These changes have led to an almost-permanent state of expansion and saturation for lottery operations. The resulting revenue surge is great at first, but it then begins to level off and even decline, a condition known as the “boredom factor.” To counter this effect, operators introduce new games to maintain or increase revenues.
But the more significant dynamic is that lottery operators are playing to a deep desire for instant wealth. They know that people have this inextricable urge to gamble, and they exploit it with billboards that promise them big prizes.
In addition to attracting this demographic, the lottery appeals to a broad range of specific constituencies, including convenience store owners (the most common sellers of lottery tickets); lottery suppliers (heavy contributions by these vendors to state political campaigns are widely reported); and teachers (in those states in which lottery revenues are earmarked for education). This is an example of public policy being made piecemeal and incrementally, with the general welfare being taken into account only intermittently, if at all. This dynamic also shows why it’s so hard to repeal a state lottery once it has been established.