The Dangers of Promoting the Lottery

The lottery is a game in which people spend small sums of money to try to win a large prize by selecting numbers at random. Prizes can range from a lump sum to a lifetime of annual payments. In the US, state governments administer most lotteries.

Making decisions and determining fates by lottery has a long history (it’s even in the Bible). But playing the lottery for material gain is more recent, despite being an enormously popular activity: Americans spent upward of $100 billion on tickets last year.

Those who play the lottery aren’t just betting on a lucky draw; they’re foregoing savings that could otherwise be invested in a retirement account or a college fund. Moreover, the government takes 24 percent of winnings, and after federal, state, and local taxes, a $1 million jackpot would end up being only about $5 million.

One reason for the lottery’s popularity is that it offers an easy way to get a big chunk of cash—often far more than someone could have earned by working a lifetime. But lottery players are disproportionately lower-income, less educated, and nonwhite.

Lottery advertising tries to defuse the regressivity by framing the experience as “fun,” but that message doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. What’s really going on is that lotteries offer an alluring promise of instant wealth in a time of limited social mobility and widening inequality. That’s a powerful and dangerous message, which is why we need to be careful when it comes to promoting them.