Lottery Messages
Lotteries are games in which bettors pay money, select numbers or symbols on a ticket, and then hope to win prizes if their chosen number(s) or symbol(s) match those selected by random drawing. The bettor must also provide some means of recording his identity and the amount staked, so that the lottery organization can determine later whether the bettor won or lost. Most modern lotteries involve computerized drawing programs, and bettor information is recorded either electronically or on paper. There is usually some form of verification of winning tickets, and a winner must be declared within a specified time frame.
In the rare event that a person wins the lottery, the prize may require substantial tax payments. Even without tax implications, many people who play the lottery lose more than they win. They should spend that money on an emergency fund or paying off credit card debt instead of buying more tickets. Americans spend over $80 billion a year on the lottery.
Some people play the lottery for fun, but others think that winning the lottery will give them a better life. These people are often irrational and they believe that their lucky numbers, favorite stores, times of day to buy, types of tickets to buy, and other quote-unquote “systems” will somehow bestow upon them the ultimate good fortune of winning. The truth is that lottery winnings are not easy to come by and there are no systems that will guarantee a jackpot.
The first big message pushed by lottery advocates is that lotteries are budgetary miracles, a way for states to generate enormous sums of money without hiking taxes or enraging an increasingly antitax electorate. In fact, as Cohen writes, “the vast majority of lottery revenue ends up in the general fund and is used for such purposes as repairing bridges, roadwork, police forces, and other government services.”
Other major messages include the idea that the more expensive a lottery game is, the higher its odds are of winning. This is a fallacy, because the price of a lottery ticket has nothing to do with its probability of winning. If you wanted to play a game with one-in-three-million odds, it would cost as much as a lottery game with one-in-three-hundred-million odds.
Finally, there is the message that the lottery is a sort of “tax on stupidity.” This argument is flawed, but it suggests that players either don’t understand how unlikely it is to win or that they enjoy the game regardless of how stupid they are. In reality, as with most commercial products, lottery sales increase when incomes decline and unemployment rises, and advertising for the product is concentrated in poor and black neighborhoods. In short, the lottery is a sort of regressive tax on the stupid.