Throughout history, lotteries have been a popular way for states to raise money for a variety of purposes. They started out as a form of painless taxation that allowed states to expand their services without imposing especially onerous taxes on the middle and working classes. But over time, they have developed into a much more complex and costly operation, and their costs are becoming increasingly important in the era of austerity.
Lottery revenues have tended to grow rapidly after their introduction and then level off or even decline over the long term. As the demand for tickets decreases, revenue-generating innovations are introduced in order to maintain or increase sales. These include scratch-off tickets, a new way to purchase multiple entries, and rollover drawings, in which the top prize is carried over to the next drawing. Adding new games and reducing ticket prices are also ways to stimulate sales.
But none of these strategies address the underlying dynamics of lottery play, which is largely driven by a fundamentally flawed misunderstanding of probability theory and the nature of random events. Lotteries are essentially a game of chance, and the winning numbers are determined by the casting of lots. But the casting of lots is not random; there are certain combinations that occur more frequently than others. If you’re buying a ticket, it’s essential to understand the dominant combinatorial groups in a given lottery and avoid them at all costs.
Most modern lotteries allow players to choose their own numbers or let a computer pick them for them. The latter option is often advertised as a way to minimize the likelihood of selecting an improbable combination. The problem is that the computer’s selection is based on the same probability distribution as your own, so you’re just throwing your money away if you select a set of numbers that is highly unlikely to win.
In addition to promoting an idea of chance that is not backed by the law of large numbers, lottery commissions have promoted other messages that obscure its regressivity. One of these is that, no matter how much you lose, you should feel good about yourself because you did your civic duty to support the state and save the children. This message may be true, but it is misleading in context of overall state revenue and, more importantly, it ignores the fact that most lottery participants will lose a substantial portion of their money.
