The drawing of lots to determine ownership or other rights is recorded in ancient documents. It is even a biblical practice: the Gospels recount a case where Nero used lots to determine who should keep Jesus’ garments after his Crucifixion. Lotteries grew to be popular in the early modern world and helped fund European colonization of America despite Protestant proscription against gambling. They are now played by billions of people. Unlike most games of chance, lottery players pay something to participate and hope to win. They believe that if they are lucky enough, their ticket will be drawn, and they will win a prize.
Cohen’s story begins in the nineteen-sixties when growing awareness of the money to be made in lottery gambling collided with a state budget crisis. States, particularly those that provided a generous social safety net, found it harder and harder to balance their budgets without raising taxes or cutting services, both of which were deeply unpopular with voters.
States began to adopt lotteries in order to raise money for a variety of purposes, including building schools and highways. New Hampshire, which is famously tax averse, approved the first state-run lottery in 1964 and thirteen others followed within a few years, all of them in the Northeast and Rust Belt. As these states embraced the lottery, its profits soared, and so did demand for tickets. By the early eighties, lottery profits were approaching $234.1 billion. Each state allocated its lottery earnings in different ways, but the majority of them gave some percentage of their proceeds to education.