The lottery is a big business, with people spending upward of $100 billion on tickets annually. It’s the most popular form of gambling in the world, and states promote it as a way to raise money for everything from roads to education. But just how much good that revenue does — and whether the trade-off to taxpayers is worth it — merits some scrutiny.
The roots of the lottery are deep and broad, from Old Testament instruction to distribute land by lot to Roman emperors’ gifts of slaves and property. But the first lotteries to offer ticket sales with a chance at prizes in exchange for a small investment were probably in the Low Countries in the 15th century. Town records from Ghent, Utrecht and Bruges mention public lotteries to raise funds for town walls, fortifications and poor relief.
Today, there are about 50 state-run lotteries in the US, with a combined prize pool exceeding $240 billion. The vast majority of the proceeds are used for prizes, with only about a third going to administrative and vendor costs. The remainder goes to various projects designated by each state, from educating kids to fighting AIDS.
Lottery participants are generally clear-eyed about the odds: They know that a winning ticket is long, but they still feel like somebody is bound to win eventually. It’s a sort of meritocratic belief that our luckier relatives are out there somewhere, and that we can all be rich someday if we just try really hard.
It is also true that there are some groups of people who play the lottery more than others. Research shows that men tend to play more than women; blacks and Hispanics play at a higher rate than whites; and the young and the elderly play less than those in middle age ranges. Income, too, matters, with lottery participation falling as a percentage of household income and rising with it.
One reason for that is that people tend to buy more tickets for bigger jackpots, and that can dilute the overall chances of winning. The odds are also distorted by the fact that the bigger jackpots often roll over to the next drawing, bringing in more bettors. And the larger jackpots generate enormous free publicity in newscasts and online.
A savvy strategy might be to choose numbers that aren’t popular with other players. Harvard statistics professor Mark Glickman suggests picking numbers that aren’t repeated, such as children’s birthdays or ages. Another trick is to avoid clusters of numbers, such as a series of digits that start with the same letter (e.g., 1-2-3-4-5-6). And, of course, it’s never a bad idea to invest in Quick Picks.
As it turns out, the most successful lotto players are those who take advantage of math. A renowned Romanian mathematician, Stefan Mandel, won the lottery 14 times in a row using a formula that relied on the theory of permutations and combinations. His formula isn’t a foolproof system, but it can help boost your odds.
