Lottery Advertising and Public Opinion

A lottery is a form of gambling in which numbers are drawn to determine winners. Most states and the District of Columbia have lotteries. It is a very popular form of gambling. Many people, including those who do not gamble normally, play the lottery. The winner may receive a lump sum payment or a series of payments over time.

The idea of distributing things according to chance has a long history. The Old Testament includes dozens of examples of the casting of lots to distribute property and other goods. The practice was widely used in ancient Rome for giving away slaves and property. The emperors of Rome also ran public lotteries to give away money for city repairs.

Modern state lotteries are more sophisticated, offering a wide variety of games and ways to participate. Some require you to mark a number on a playslip, while others allow you to let a computer randomly pick your numbers for you. Some of these games offer smaller prizes, such as tickets to concerts or sporting events, while others have large jackpots. Often, the larger the jackpot, the lower the odds of winning.

Lottery advertising typically focuses on two messages, one of which is to emphasize the fun of playing the game. The other is to imply that you are doing a civic duty by buying a ticket, even if you lose. Both of these messages have some validity. But critics argue that the advertisements are often deceptive. They present misleading information about the odds of winning, inflate the value of the prize (in most cases, lottery jackpots are paid in equal annual installments over 20 years, with inflation and taxes dramatically eroding the current value), and so on.

Nevertheless, these messages can have significant influence over public opinion about the lottery. For example, some studies have found that the level of public support for a state lottery depends not on the fiscal health of the state but on whether the lottery is seen as benefiting a specific cause, such as education. This dynamic helps explain why, even when the odds are long, the lottery attracts people who would not otherwise be interested in gambling.

There is, of course, an inextricable human urge to gamble. But there is something else going on, too. Lotteries are dangling the promise of instant riches in an era of inequality and limited social mobility. And they are succeeding in that endeavor. Even those who do not gamble regularly, and especially the wealthy, can be tempted by these offers. But the ugly underbelly of these offerings is that they are encouraging people to spend much more than they can afford, in order to get a very slim and distant chance of winning.