The lottery is a government-sanctioned form of gambling wherein people pay for a ticket and hope to win a prize by matching numbers drawn at random. Prizes can range from a lump sum of cash to a house or automobile, to even an entire new life. State governments rely on the lottery as an important source of revenue that can help them fund social welfare programs and other services without generating much ire from the state’s tax-averse citizenry.

Lottery is an ancient activity, with records of drawing lots dating back to the Old Testament. The casting of lots was also common in the Roman Empire—Nero was a big fan—and was used to determine everything from who would receive land after a war to the distribution of slaves. In colonial America, lotteries were a popular fundraising mechanism. The Continental Congress sanctioned a lottery in 1776 to raise money for the Revolution and other public works projects. Privately organized lotteries were also common in the United States, and they helped finance such institutions as Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, King’s College (now Columbia), and William and Mary.

But critics of the lottery argued that lotteries were morally unsound and that the state really stood to gain very little from them. They hailed from both the left and the right of the political spectrum, and devout Protestants were particularly vocal in their objections to government-sponsored gambling. They were also often unaware that private lotteries, even those not backed by the state, had substantial charitable contributions that helped alleviate poverty and disease.

Despite these objections, the lottery took hold throughout the country in the immediate post-World War II period and, as Cohen recounts, it became one of the most significant sources of revenue for the state of California. But, by the early nineteen-eighties, the lottery was starting to wane in popularity and the number of states that supported it started dropping, as did federal money flowing into state coffers.

As the economy worsened, states began to cast about for ways to balance their budgets and raise needed revenues without upsetting an increasingly anti-tax populace. Hence, in 1964, New Hampshire established the first modern state lottery, and the rest soon followed suit. The modern-day lottery has a remarkably uniform structure. The arguments for and against it, the way the industry is structured, and its evolution all follow a predictable pattern across the country.

The main message that state lotteries convey is that playing the lottery is fun, and they are not above leveraging psychological triggers to keep people engaged and spending their hard-earned money. For example, they employ “smart glitz”—the use of digital graphics and other high-tech elements to make the lottery look more appealing—to lure in players. And, of course, they are not above playing on the psychology of addiction: Every detail from ad campaigns to the layout of the tickets is designed to keep them hooked. It is no different than the strategy employed by tobacco companies or video-game makers.