In the nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties, lottery sales soared as people dreamed of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg or Michael Jordan. But this obsession with unimaginable wealth corresponded with a decline in financial security for most Americans: incomes stagnated, pensions and job benefits vanished, health-care costs rose, and the national promise that if you work hard enough you can take care of your family, pay off your mortgage, and maybe buy a new car or a big house one day disappeared.
The lottery has always been a regressive enterprise, but the boom in ticket sales in the nineteen-seventies was especially so. Lottery profits largely benefited large states, and rollover jackpots created a kind of pyramid scheme that shifted money from smaller to larger prizes while leaving the winnings themselves relatively small. The result was that most people left the game feeling like they had been ripped off.
Defending the lottery, state commissions have relied on two messages primarily. One is that the experience of playing the lottery is fun and the other is that a lottery is good because it raises money for a particular line item in a state budget—usually education but sometimes elder care, public parks, or veteran support. This approach is regressive in its effect but makes it easy for politicians to promote the lottery as a nonpartisan solution to funding problems.
It also plays into a deep anxiety that we are all doomed to lose. The Utopian vision of the lottery as a way out is a reflection of that fear, as well as an equally pessimistic belief that even though we know the odds are against us it is important to keep trying because the prize we want, however improbable, will eventually be ours.