In 2021, Americans spent over $100 billion on lottery tickets, making it the nation’s most popular form of gambling. Lottery games are promoted by state officials as ways to raise revenue without onerous taxes on middle and working class citizens. But how meaningful this revenue is to broader state budgets, and whether it’s worth the trade-off to people who lose money, is questionable.
In the early 15th century, people in the Low Countries began to hold public lotteries with tickets that distributed prizes of money and goods. These lotteries were a development of the practice of drawing lots to decide fates, which has been in use for over 3000 years. The first recorded public lottery to award money prizes was organized in Rome during the reign of Emperor Augustus, who used the proceeds for city repairs and gifts to poor people.
When lottery players buy a ticket, they’re paying a small fee for the chance to win a large sum of money. The odds of winning vary wildly depending on the price of a ticket, how many tickets are sold, and how much prize money is on offer. It’s not uncommon for people to develop quote-unquote “systems” about buying tickets in certain stores at certain times of day to increase their chances of winning, and they can spend thousands or millions on the hope that they’ll hit it big.
Generally speaking, the more tickets are sold, the higher the jackpot will be. This is because the more tickets are purchased, the greater the chance that someone will match all of the numbers in a given drawing. Some people like to select their own numbers, while others prefer to buy a quick pick ticket and let the computer choose random numbers for them. Either way, the odds of winning are incredibly slim.
Many states subsidize the cost of lottery tickets and sell them to raise money for state projects, such as schools, roads, and public works. In colonial-era America, lotteries were a frequent tool for financing the establishment of new colonies and public works projects. George Washington even sponsored a lottery in 1768 to finance road construction across the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Despite the skepticism of critics, state lotteries have proved to be a reliable source of funding for public projects. However, they’ve also been criticized for their role in promoting addiction to gambling and for contributing to the covetousness that God forbids: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, his wife, his manservant or his maidservant, his ox or his ass, or anything that is his” (Exodus 20:17). While it may seem that the money won by lottery winners would solve all of life’s problems, such hopes are empty and unfounded. In fact, those who have won large amounts of money from the lottery often find themselves worse off than before they played. The truth is that winning the lottery is a dangerous game. It can make you a gambler for life.