The idea behind Lottery is pretty simple: You buy a ticket and, hopefully, win a big prize. Billboards abound with the Mega Millions jackpot and the Powerball jackpot, and a sliver of hope remains that one day you’ll hit it big. But for many, especially those with low incomes, lottery games aren’t just fun; they’re a disguised tax.
The first public lotteries offering money prizes in the modern sense of the word appear in 15th-century Burgundy and Flanders towns trying to raise funds for town fortifications or help the poor. King Francis I of France tried to organize a national lottery, but his attempt failed because the wealthy opposed it.
Most states now run their own state lotteries, and federally sanctioned lotteries can be found worldwide. Privately organized lotteries are common as well; for example, Benjamin Franklin ran a lottery in 1748 to raise funds for “a militia for defense against marauding French attacks,” and John Hancock ran a private lottery to build Boston’s Faneuil Hall.
Most people think of winning the lottery as an individual’s chance to make a lot of money, and most of the time that is true. But the truth is that state and federal governments also benefit a great deal from this arrangement. The majority of the money from Lottery—other than what you win—ends up in state coffers where it gets used for things like roadwork, police forces, or other general funding shortfalls. Some states even put some of their winnings into programs that support gambling addiction recovery and education.
