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In the nineteen-sixties, states found themselves facing a funding crisis as booming population and rising inflation collided with the costs of the war in Vietnam and social welfare programs. In many states, lawmakers realized that maintaining these services would require raising taxes or cutting them, and both options were wildly unpopular with voters. Lotteries, they believed, offered an alternative way to raise money without triggering the voters’ wrath.
Supposedly, lotteries could fill state coffers with millions of dollars in revenue, while keeping the money away from average citizens. The idea was so appealing that, as soon as one state legalized a lottery, others soon followed suit in a geographic pattern. Today, there are dozens of state lotteries across the country, and two multi-state games, Mega Millions and Powerball, offer jackpots that dwarf those of any individual state’s.
But the myth that state lotteries are a benign alternative to taxation is also flawed. Lotteries, Cohen argues, do more than just provide people with an opportunity to gamble. They are part of an industry that relies on the psychology of addiction to keep people coming back for more, a strategy not dissimilar from that used by tobacco companies or video-game manufacturers.