The Ugly Underbelly of the Lottery
Making decisions and determining fates by the casting of lots has a long record in human history. It is cited in the Old Testament, for example. And Roman emperors used lotteries to give away property and slaves. But the modern lottery is a relatively recent invention. The first state-sponsored public lottery was established in 1466, to distribute funds for municipal repairs in Bruges, Belgium. Since then, lotteries have spread to most of the world’s developed countries. But, unlike many other forms of gambling, state lotteries have not evolved in a way that ensures that the general welfare is protected or enhanced.
A large part of this lapse stems from the fact that, after a lottery’s initial boom, revenues typically level off and then decline. To maintain or increase revenues, lotteries must continually introduce new games and expand their game portfolio. This can lead to a cycle of increasing complexity that can be difficult for the public to follow.
Adding new lotteries is also difficult for states to justify to the public, which often resists the increase in cost and abrasion that accompanies each expansion. State officials must also balance the need for revenue with the need to preserve integrity. These factors create a high level of risk for taxpayers, and can make the operation of a lottery more unstable and unpredictable than in other areas of gambling.
The problem with the argument that lottery revenues benefit the public is that it fails to take into account other sources of revenue for a state. For example, taxes on tobacco and alcohol provide much more revenue for a state than do lottery proceeds. Moreover, lottery revenues are often not distributed evenly among socio-economic groups. Men play more than women; blacks and Hispanics play more than whites; and the young and old play less than middle-aged adults. Lottery commissions try to hide this regressivity by promoting the lottery as fun, and stressing that it is a form of entertainment.
But the reality is that the average lottery player is not having fun and is not getting any benefit from his or her participation. Rather, he or she is suffering from the ugly underbelly of the game – the belief that winning the lottery, however improbable, will somehow lift them out of their current circumstances. Those who understand how probability theory and combinatorial math work can use these tools to better avoid this trap. But, for most people, the lottery is just a waste of money. And that is a very real shame.
Making decisions and determining fates by the casting of lots has a long record in human history. It is cited in the Old Testament, for example. And Roman emperors used lotteries to give away property and slaves. But the modern lottery is a relatively recent invention. The first state-sponsored public lottery was established in 1466,…