Lottery Addiction
Lottery is a game of chance, a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw it, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. While many people find it irrational to play the lottery, a certain number of individuals do get some value out of it.
The practice of distributing property and services by lottery dates back to ancient times. In the Old Testament, Moses is instructed to divide the land among Israel’s tribes by lot. The Roman emperors often gave away slaves and other property as part of Saturnalian feasts. Lotteries were also a popular dinner entertainment in the American colonies, and they were used by the Continental Congress to raise money for the revolutionary war.
Today’s state lotteries are highly profitable. They are marketed with catchy slogans and eye-catching graphics, and they are designed to keep players hooked. From the prize payouts to the way the tickets look, every aspect of a modern lottery is engineered to maximize the number of participants and the amount of money they contribute. Lottery commissioners are not above using psychological tricks like addiction triggers—think Snickers bars and video games—to make sure the public keeps buying tickets.
To keep ticket sales strong, the odds of winning must be kept low. The larger the jackpot, the less likely it is to be won. But keeping the odds low also cuts into the percentage of ticket sales that go to a government fund. That fund, in turn, funds things like education and other social services. So, despite the fact that they are not explicitly a tax, lottery revenues do function as an implicit government tax. And because people don’t see it as a direct tax, they do not protest.
As the nineteen-seventies and -eighties unfolded, however, it became clear that a large segment of the population was addicted to the dream of striking it rich in the lottery. They yearned for a big win, even though the reality was that their financial prospects were bleak: income disparities widening, pensions shrinking, health-care costs and unemployment on the rise.
While some people genuinely enjoy playing the lottery, most of them buy tickets for the same reason that they shop at the Dollar General: to get what they need on a tight budget. Even when they lose, the tickets provide them with a few minutes, hours or days to dream and imagine a better future, however irrational it may be. And that is a very valuable thing, no matter how mathematically impossible it may be.