The Lottery and Its Impact on Lower-Income Populations
Lottery is a form of gambling where the prizes are allocated by random drawing. Its popularity in the United States has grown significantly since the 1960s. Its revenue has fueled expansion into new games such as keno and video poker, and has prompted an aggressive effort at promotion, especially through advertising. This growth has produced a second set of issues, such as the impact of lottery revenue on state budgets and the regressive nature of its effects on lower-income populations.
There is, of course, an inextricable element of human pleasure in the idea of winning the jackpot and achieving instant wealth. And the lottery industry knows it. That’s why it markets itself as the newest, hottest thing, and why it plasters billboards on every freeway and in every shopping mall. The message is clear: the lottery is your last, best, or only chance to win big.
But what people don’t realize is that the lottery is also a tax on poor and working-class communities. Lottery profits provide a perverse incentive for rich and wealthy communities to invest in their own government, at the expense of the middle class and the working classes. In the long run, that exacerbates inequality and makes it more difficult for those at the bottom of the economic ladder to get ahead.
A growing number of states — including Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, and West Virginia — have lotteries, and more than a dozen others are considering them. In the United States, lottery revenues have climbed from less than one-third of total state spending in 1964 to over half in 2000. It has become a major source of funding for schools, roads, and other infrastructure projects.
Despite the fact that lotteries have a long record in human history — there are multiple instances of it in the Bible — they have only come to prominence in recent times. Their popularity is partly due to the need for public funding and to raise money for wars, towns, and other projects. In the US, George Washington ran a lottery to fund construction of the Mountain Road in 1760, and Benjamin Franklin advocated them to pay for cannons during the Revolutionary War.
Surveys of state lotteries show that participation rates vary by socio-economic status and other demographic factors. For example, men play more often than women, and those who don’t have a college degree spend more on tickets than those with at least some higher education. Many of the state-level findings mirror those of the national studies: Lottery play tends to rise with income, and is highest among those who are in middle age or older. It is also lowest among those with less education and those living in low-income households. However, there is one exception to this pattern: Lottery play is more popular among those with religious beliefs than among those who are atheists. This may be because, for some, lotteries are the only gambling opportunity they have.