A lottery is a game of chance in which numbers are drawn and people with the right tickets win a prize. Lotteries are often regulated by state or federal governments and are usually considered legal gambling. The odds of winning a lottery can be extremely low, but people still play in hopes of winning a huge sum of money.
The first state-sponsored lotteries were in the Low Countries in the early 15th century to raise money for town fortifications and to help the poor. The word “lottery” comes from the Dutch noun lot, meaning ‘fate’ or ‘luck’ and its Middle Dutch roots, lotinge, meaning the drawing of lots (Oxford English Dictionary).
In the United States, state-sponsored lotteries are very popular. In fact, Americans spend over $80 Billion on lotteries each year – an average of over $600 per household. Many of these dollars could be better spent on an emergency fund or paying down credit card debt.
It is not surprising that the popularity of the lottery has coincided with a decline in financial security for working families. Since the nineteen-seventies, wages have stagnated, the gap between rich and poor has widened, health-care costs have risen, job security has decreased, and the long-standing promise that hard work will make children better off than their parents has come to seem less likely. Lotteries can provide temporary relief from these challenges, but they do not offer a solution to them. As a result, the number of players continues to rise.
