What is a Lottery?
Lottery is a gambling game in which tickets are sold and a drawing of lots is held for the distribution of prizes. Prizes may be money or goods. In some cases, a lottery is organized to raise funds for a public charitable purpose. The word lottery is probably derived from the Middle Dutch phrase loterie, or “action of drawing lots.”
Lotteries can be addictive, and they are not good for people’s financial health. They can be especially dangerous for people who already have gambling problems. And even if someone doesn’t have a gambling problem, the money spent on tickets is better used for savings or paying down debt.
Super-sized jackpots drive lottery sales, and they also earn the games a windfall of free publicity on news sites and on TV. But making the jackpots appear bigger obscures their regressive nature, and it also distracts from the fact that the top prize isn’t always won, so a large percentage of the tickets remain unsold each time.
The immediate post-World War II period was one in which state governments could expand their array of services without especially burdensome taxes on the middle and working classes. But as inflation and costs of military conflicts increased, that arrangement began to crumble. In many cases, states began to use lottery revenues to supplement their budgets. This is an example of what economists call rent-seeking, which involves using public resources to benefit private interests. It is a common practice and not necessarily in violation of the principle of enumerative rights.