Lottery is a game of chance in which players purchase a ticket and have a small chance of winning a large sum of money. It’s a form of gambling and is not legal in many countries. Some people play for fun while others use it to improve their lives. In the US alone, lottery players contribute billions to the economy each year. The odds of winning are very low but a few people still manage to make it big. The lottery is a popular way to fund education, public works projects and even wars.
Lotteries are as ancient as the human race; they were common during the Roman Empire (Nero was a fan) and found their way into the Bible, where they are used to decide everything from the next king of Israel to which enslaved people would keep Jesus’ clothes after his crucifixion. In the early American colonies, lottery games were tangled up in slavery in unpredictable ways; George Washington managed a lottery that offered human beings as prizes and Denmark Vesey won the state lottery in South Carolina, purchased his freedom, and went on to foment slave rebellions. But the modern era of the lottery began in the nineteen sixties, when states faced budget crises that could not be solved by raising taxes or cutting services, both of which were extremely unpopular with voters.
Advocates of the new state-run lotteries argued that gambling was already a part of American life, and government might as well take advantage of it. This argument lacked force, Cohen writes, but it gave moral cover to people who approved of the lottery for other reasons. It also helped them to avoid long-standing ethical objections about state sponsorship of gambling.
Moreover, as with all commercial products, lottery sales are responsive to economic fluctuation. Lottery revenues increase as incomes fall, unemployment grows and poverty rates rise. Consequently, ticket prices and promotional spending tend to spike in poorer neighborhoods. The result is that “the lion’s share of the profits are collected by a few people.”
As an antidote to these problems, Lustig advocates a “clean” lottery, arguing that a truly fair system will produce about the same number of winners no matter how many tickets are sold. The key, he says, is to avoid the temptation to pick your numbers based on software, astrology or favorite numbers. Instead, you should choose them randomly.
Cohen’s book is an important contribution to our understanding of how the lottery works and why people play it. It should be read by all who are interested in the subject, and it can serve as a useful tool for teachers, parents and students looking to introduce the topic of gambling in a thoughtful and accessible manner. It will also be valuable to those who work on the policy of gambling and are trying to devise solutions to its problems. The history of lotteries shows that the process is not as straightforward as it seems, and we must learn from its lessons to protect the integrity of our democracy and the quality of our lives.