People in the United States spent upward of $100 billion on lottery tickets in 2021, rendering it the most popular form of gambling in the country. States promote the games as ways to raise revenue for a wide variety of government functions, such as education, roads and bridges and social safety nets. But how meaningful that revenue is and whether it’s worth the trade-off of people losing their money in order to fund those services is debatable.
State lotteries are a form of gambling wherein a prize, usually cash, is awarded to the winner(s) of a random drawing. The word “lottery” is derived from the Dutch noun lot meaning fate or destiny, and it was first recorded in English in 1569. Its French equivalent is la loterie, but that word came into common use later than the English, and it is thought that it may be a calque on Middle Dutch lotinge, “action of drawing lots”.
The most important thing to know about lottery is that you’re never going to win. It’s the odds that matter, and the odds don’t change over time. So, if you play the same numbers every time, you’re no more likely to win than if you randomly picked six numbers. Some people develop a system for selecting their numbers, but it doesn’t make much difference. Even the most sophisticated mathematicians have trouble developing a system that beats the odds.
Moreover, even if you’re lucky enough to win the lottery, there is no guarantee that you will keep your winnings. If you’re one of the few winners, you might have to share the prize with many other people, and that will cut into your actual take-home pay. In fact, a Romanian-born mathematician named Stefan Mandel was able to win the lottery 14 times, but he ended up keeping only $97,000 of his winnings after paying out the investors.
Lotteries are a dangerous form of gambling, especially for the poor and working class. They can easily become addictive and can have devastating effects on families, businesses and communities. They also tend to be regressive, in that the most money is won by those with the highest incomes.
Lottery commissions have started to shift the messages that they send out, in a bid to soften the regressive nature of these activities. Instead of promoting the message that you’re doing your civic duty by buying a ticket, they’re now pushing the idea that it’s fun and that the experience of scratching off a ticket is a special treat. But that’s a weak message at best, and it obscures the fact that lottery gambling is still bad for society. It’s no better than other forms of gambling, and it’s certainly not worth the costs. It’s just another way that the rich get richer while everyone else suffers. This should not be allowed to continue.
