The lottery has long been a favorite way for states to raise funds for a wide range of public projects. But as many Americans have grown more skeptical of state government, lotteries have been losing popularity. In fact, only 44 of the 50 states now run them. The six that don’t have any are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Utah and Nevada (home to Las Vegas). So what’s behind this dramatic decline?
One reason states are abandoning the lottery is that it doesn’t provide them with enough revenue. In general, lottery revenues rise dramatically soon after they’re introduced, then level off or even decline. To counter this “boredom factor,” state lotteries continually introduce new games to increase sales.
Another issue is that the prizes for a lottery are often not large enough to entice potential participants. The prize pool is typically deducted by the costs of organizing and promoting the lottery, which normally goes to the state government or a private sponsor. The remainder is usually set aside for winners. Generally speaking, lottery prizes are much larger for rollover drawings than for single-draw winners.
As a result, people tend to prefer numbers that are close together or that have significant dates, like birthdays or ages. This can reduce the overall chance of winning. And there is a certain amount of truth to the old advice that you should avoid playing numbers with consecutive digits, which have only a 3% chance of being drawn in any given drawing. Harvard statistics professor Mark Glickman suggests players should choose random numbers or Quick Picks, which are generated randomly for them. This will give them a better chance of keeping the entire jackpot if they win, because they won’t have to share it with other people who picked similar numbers.
Finally, the popularity of a lottery depends on how it’s perceived as benefiting a specific public good. This is especially true in times of economic distress. Lotteries can be a convenient way for state governments to raise money without raising taxes or cutting spending on important programs.
Whether or not the lottery is an effective way to spend tax dollars remains to be seen. But there’s no denying that it’s an effective way to get people to spend their own money on small chances of winning big. It may not be a solution to the nation’s fiscal crisis, but it is an effective way for politicians to appease voters who oppose paying higher taxes. This dynamic is likely to continue as the economy continues to deteriorate and more state governments turn to lotteries for funding.
