The lottery is a game of chance in which players pay money for tickets and then win prizes by matching numbers or symbols. Prizes range from cash to goods and services. Lotteries have been in existence for centuries. In fact, the casting of lots for property rights has been recorded in many ancient documents, including some from the Bible. In modern times, lottery has become one of the world’s most popular forms of gambling.
In the nineteen-seventies and -eighties, Americans’ obsession with winning the multimillion-dollar jackpot of a lottery seemed to coincide with a decline in financial security for working people: Incomes fell; job security and pensions eroded; unemployment and poverty rates rose; health-care costs skyrocketed; and the long-held national promise that hard work would render individuals financially better off than their parents became an ever-more distant prospect. It’s no surprise that in this environment, people flocked to the lottery to get their fix of hope and fantasy.
Initially, state lawmakers who advocated the adoption of a lottery focused on its value as a source of “painless” revenue. They argued that voters would voluntarily spend their money on the lottery, and in doing so, they would be contributing to state coffers without having to vote for an increase in taxes.
As states continued to struggle with budget deficits in the late eighties, the lottery’s appeal grew even stronger. With a growing anti-tax movement in full swing, politicians looked for ways to maintain services and programs without enraging their constituents by raising taxes. The lottery was seen as a quick and easy solution: it would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, thereby freeing them from the need to ever again contemplate tax increases.
Once a lottery is established, however, debate and criticism of its operation tends to shift away from the general desirability of the enterprise to specific features of its operations: for example, complaints about compulsive gambling or the lottery’s regressive impact on low-income groups. The focus of discussion also becomes more narrowly defined, encompassing the interests of convenience store operators (a major lottery vendor); suppliers of lottery products and services (heavy contributions by such suppliers to state political campaigns are widely reported); teachers in states in which lottery revenues are earmarked for education; and state legislators and government officials who become accustomed to the influx of lottery funds.
Lottery policy is made piecemeal and incrementally, and the overall public welfare is rarely taken into consideration. This is in part because public officials typically have little control over lottery decisions once they are in place. Moreover, the evolution of the lottery has often been shaped by private interests that have no direct interest in state finances or the well-being of its citizens. For these reasons, few states have a coherent “gambling policy” or even a lottery policy. Instead, such policies are largely shaped by the whims of a market that is not regulated by any external force.