The lottery is a popular form of gambling in which players pay for tickets that are randomly drawn and can win prizes if enough of their numbers match those of the winning numbers. The prizes range from cash to goods and services. Some lotteries offer the chance to win a home or automobile. Others award money or college scholarships. Many states and the federal government have lotteries. A few countries also have lotteries. In the United States, the most popular forms of lotteries are state-sponsored games and those that award money or college scholarships.
Despite the popularity of lotteries, critics contend that they have serious flaws. They argue that they promote addictive gambling behaviors and are a major regressive tax on lower-income groups. They also charge that lotteries create a conflict between state governments’ desire to increase revenues and their obligation to protect the public welfare.
Making decisions or determining fates by casting lots has a long record in human history, including several instances recorded in the Bible. The practice of using a drawing of numbers for material gain is somewhat more recent, however, and appears to have been first used for such purposes in the mid-15th century.
In the early days of American colonial life, private, privately organized lotteries raised a significant amount of money for a variety of public projects, including rebuilding Faneuil Hall in Boston and supplying a battery of guns for the defense of Philadelphia. The Continental Congress authorized public lotteries in 1776, and, by 1826, there were a number of state and licensed lotteries that were largely responsible for the building of Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, King’s College (now Columbia), Brown, Union, William and Mary, and other American colleges.
Many people play the lottery because they like to gamble, and it is difficult to impose a moral barrier against this impulse. But, in addition, the fact that lotteries dangle the promise of instant wealth in an age of inequality and limited social mobility is an important reason why many people choose to participate.
State-sponsored lotteries generally require that the proceeds benefit a specific, designated public purpose, such as education. This argument has proved effective in obtaining and maintaining broad public approval for the games. However, studies by Clotfelter and Cook show that the objective fiscal circumstances of a state have little bearing on whether or when it adopts a lottery.
Once established, the lotteries continue to evolve in response to market changes and the demands of their specific constituencies. The general public remains a key constituency, of course, but there are numerous other special interests as well: convenience store owners (the lottery is often advertised in their stores); suppliers of equipment and services for lotteries (heavy contributions by them to state political campaigns are routinely reported); teachers (in those states where revenues are earmarked for educational purposes); etc.
State lotteries are a classic example of how public policy is made piecemeal and incrementally, and how the general welfare is rarely taken into consideration. Few, if any, states have a coherent “lottery policy” or even a “gambling policy.”