A lottery is a game of chance, in which bettors purchase tickets with numbers or symbols on them, and winners are selected at random. The term is derived from the Latin lotium, meaning “fateful drawing” (the earliest use in English was recorded in 1569).
Today 44 states and the District of Columbia run their own state-sponsored lotteries. The six that don’t are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Utah, and Nevada (the last two, of course, are home to Las Vegas).
Lottery revenues grow quickly after they launch, then flatten out and even decline. So the business model requires a constant introduction of new games to maintain or increase sales.
To do that, the state sets up a monopoly for itself; establishes a public agency or corporation to administer the lottery (or, in some cases, licenses a private firm in return for a slice of the profits); begins operations with a modest number of relatively simple games; and then uses advertising to generate interest in new offerings. Critics charge that this sort of promotional campaign is often deceptive, typically presenting misleading information about the odds of winning the jackpot; inflating the value of the money won (lotto jackpot prizes are usually paid out in equal annual installments over 20 years, and inflation dramatically erodes their current value); and so on.
A key factor in attracting and maintaining public approval for the lottery is its ability to portray itself as benefiting a specific, publicly identified “good,” such as education. This argument works particularly well during times of economic stress, but studies have shown that the objective fiscal circumstances of a state are rarely a significant factor in deciding whether or when to adopt a lottery.