In the United States, state lotteries dish out cash prizes to paying participants. People purchase tickets, usually for a dollar, and win if their numbers match those randomly spit out by machines. A variety of games are played, including “Lotto” and instant-win scratch-offs. Many states also offer daily games where players select three or four numbers out of a group, and “pick-three” and “pick-four” are examples. Lotteries are widely accepted by most people as a painless form of taxation and are supported by politicians because voters want the government to spend money, and they like lotteries as a way to get this money without raising taxes.
The lottery’s popularity has a long history. In ancient times, the Hebrew Bible instructed Moses to distribute property by lot and Roman emperors used lotteries at Saturnalian feasts. In the 17th century, Benjamin Franklin held a lottery to fund his American Revolution project; the Continental Congress later approved public lotteries as a source of “voluntary” taxes. Today, all but two states and Washington, D.C., run lotteries and most have multiple games, including keno, bingo, and poker-like games.
Most people who buy tickets for the big games are not compulsive gamblers and do not expect to win. Instead, they are looking for a brief time of fantasy in which they imagine themselves standing on a stage with an oversized check for millions of dollars. They are buying a ticket to experience the thrill of winning, a sliver of hope that it may happen—even though the odds of doing so are long.