a gambling game or method of raising money, as for some public charitable purpose, in which a large number of tickets are sold and a drawing is held for certain prizes.
People play the lottery because they like to gamble, but it’s also more than that. It’s an expression of the belief that somehow, someday, someone will come along and give them a big break, a chance to get their life together. That’s why you see billboards with the Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot, and it’s why so many people buy a ticket.
But there are some very real concerns about lotteries, and they begin with the way that state governments set them up. In an anti-tax era, lotteries were promoted as a form of “painless” revenue, a way to expand state services without imposing onerous taxes on the working and middle classes. As a result, many state governments have become dependent on these lottery revenues and feel pressure to increase them.
Moreover, once lotteries are established, they tend to evolve quickly. New games are introduced to keep the public interested, and revenues typically rise dramatically at first, but then level off and may even decline. Those trends have raised serious concerns about how these games are being run and whether they serve their intended purposes.