In the nineteen-sixties, as America’s economy slowed and state funding dwindled, it became increasingly difficult for states to balance their budgets without raising taxes or cutting services. This, of course, was unpopular with voters. The lottery offered an alternative: a way to win big money without having to pay any taxes. Since 1964, when New Hampshire started the modern era of state lotteries, it’s been a phenomenon that has spread to almost every state in the country. Lottery revenues have soared, and, with some exceptions, have replaced traditional tax revenue in most states.
The odds of winning the lottery depend on the type of lottery you play. In the earliest forms, lotteries were little more than traditional raffles, with participants buying tickets for future drawings that might be weeks or months away. But in the 1970s, lottery organizers introduced instant games such as scratch-off tickets. These offered lower prizes, but the chance to win was immediate. They also cost less to run, and they could be promoted in ways that were more appealing to the public.
As a result, sales for instant games grew far faster than those for traditional lotteries, and state governments began to make more aggressive use of advertising and other marketing tools. The introduction of new games like keno and video poker helped as well. But despite these innovations, growth in lottery revenue eventually leveled off and then began to decline. The reasons are complex, but they likely include increased competition from other gambling activities and a growing boredom among lottery players.
A major part of the problem is that, if you play a lottery regularly, you can become addicted. Lottery players tend to be disproportionately from middle-income neighborhoods, and they spend more than their proportion of the population on tickets. The same holds true for the winners: they are disproportionately from middle-income neighborhoods, too.
In addition, the chances of winning the lottery increase if you buy multiple tickets. This is because you can have more than one set of numbers in a single drawing, and each number has an equal chance of being selected. Moreover, you can also win if you have a ticket that matches the winning combination of numbers, even if it’s not the number you purchased.
There are other problems with lottery addiction, too. For one, the addiction can be exacerbated by an obsession with a fanciful vision of wealth. Cohen points out that the surge in lottery addiction in the nineteen-seventies and eighties coincided with a decline in financial security for most working people. Wages sank, pensions and job security evaporated, health-care costs rose, and the long-held American promise that hard work would lead to a comfortable retirement ceased to be true for many families. Moreover, lottery jackpots have grown to enormous sizes and earn the games an infusion of free publicity from news sites and newscasts when they roll over. All of this is designed to keep people coming back for more.