The drawing of lots to determine property rights or other matters has a long record in human history, including several instances in the Bible. The lottery emerged in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when it became common for public and private organizations to raise funds for towns, wars, colleges, and other purposes by selling tickets whose winners were chosen by drawing lots. Today state-sponsored lotteries are among the most popular forms of gambling in America, with sales exceeding $5 billion a year and growing rapidly.
But many people who buy lottery tickets do so without much thought to the risk-to-reward ratio of this type of gamble. In addition to the potential of winning large sums of money, lotteries also contribute to the development of addictive gambling behavior and are criticized for expanding gambling opportunities in lower-income neighborhoods. Moreover, state lottery revenues can be used to finance state programs that might otherwise be cut in tight times, and this leads to the criticism that the lottery is a form of regressive taxation. The popularity of the lottery continues to expand despite these and other concerns, and the lottery industry is aggressively seeking new sources of revenue. New games are being introduced, and the lottery is reaching into the markets of convenience stores, where it has become a familiar sight, and suppliers of merchandising items for use with lotto promotions. Some states have even teamed up with sports teams and other companies to provide popular products as prizes on scratch-off games.