Lottery is a form of gambling in which a group of numbers or symbols on a ticket are randomly spit out by a machine and winners are awarded prizes based on the number of winning combinations. Its origins are centuries old, with the Old Testament instructing Moses to take a census of Israel and distribute land by lottery and Roman emperors using lotteries to give away property and slaves. The practice was brought to the United States in the 18th century by British colonists and received mixed reactions, with ten states banning lotteries from 1844 to 1859.
State governments that adopt lotteries quickly become dependent on these “painless” revenues, and pressures to increase them are constant. But there are serious questions about whether this is a proper function for government at any level, especially given the ways in which lottery advertising promotes gambling and can be harmful to poor people, problem gamblers and other vulnerable populations.
In the anti-tax era that followed World War II, many state officials saw lotteries as an opportunity to expand their range of services without raising taxes. But that arrangement was always a temporary one, and as the economy slowed and states began struggling to balance their budgets, the appeal of the lottery waned. Voters became disillusioned with the idea of paying for public goods with money that was essentially their own. And, for the most part, lotteries serve a privileged and exclusive population – a majority of players are from middle- and upper-income neighborhoods, while lower-income households disproportionately lack participation.
