The Myths and Facts About the Lottery
Lottery is a state-run gambling game wherein participants pay for tickets, either by buying them or having machines randomly spit them out, and try to win prizes based on the number of their selections that match those of other players. It is one of the few forms of gambling that states allow, and it is a major source of revenue for most state governments. It is also a common form of recreational gambling, and its prevalence has given rise to many myths, such as that lottery winnings are a reliable way to get out of debt or that people spend an average of $80 a week on tickets.
Despite the fact that lottery winnings are not very common, some people still believe in their ability to win, even when they know that the odds of winning are extremely low. The rationality of this behavior is that, for some individuals, the entertainment value of playing the lottery is high enough to outweigh the disutility of monetary loss. Moreover, the non-monetary gains can be quite significant. For example, a person may choose to buy a ticket so that they can receive free medical care, which can greatly improve their quality of life.
The use of lottery to distribute property and slaves dates back centuries, with Moses instructed to divide the land of Israel by lot and Roman emperors using them for entertainment at Saturnalian parties (ticket holders received gifts, such as fancy dinnerware, rather than money). The lottery became popular in Europe after Francis I learned about them during his campaigns in Italy and established France’s first one, the Loterie Royale, in 1539.
By the fourteen-hundreds, lottery games were common in the Netherlands, where profits from the Staatsloterij went to town fortifications and charities. They eventually made their way to England, where Queen Elizabeth I chartered the country’s first lottery in 1567, designating its profits for “reparation of the Havens and Strength of the Realme.”
In America, lottery games started popping up around the turn of the nineteenth century as states searched for ways to raise funds without enraging anti-tax voters. They were promoted by states with large social safety nets, who saw them as a way to fund those programs without having to levy taxes on the middle class and working poor.
But there’s more than politics behind the popularity of lotteries. In a world in which the distribution of property and human goods is increasingly unequal, many people see lottery winnings as their only hope of a decent life. The winners in the lottery don’t just splurge on luxuries; they also use their winnings to support their children’s education, provide for old age and, most importantly, save for emergencies.
These sentiments are not unfounded, but they ignore the fact that lottery winnings are a highly risky proposition and that people will usually end up with less than they expected to win. The chart below shows the number of times that each application won a specific position, as compared with the overall number of applications. The fact that the colors on each row are close to identical suggests that the results are fairly random.