The practice of distributing property or money prizes by lottery is ancient. The Old Testament instructs Moses to take a census of Israel and divide its land by lot, and Roman emperors used lotteries as entertainment at dinner parties and for giving away slaves and other property. In colonial-era America, lotteries were a major source of state revenue, helping finance such projects as building the British Museum and the construction of Boston’s Faneuil Hall.

State lotteries generally follow a similar pattern: legislators create a monopoly for themselves; establish an agency or public corporation to run the lottery (as opposed to licensing private firms in return for a share of the profits); begin operations with a small number of relatively simple games; and, as revenues increase, progressively expand the lottery by adding new games. Revenues usually rise dramatically at the beginning of a lottery’s life, then level off and even decline. This is known as the “boredom factor” and is what drives the constant introduction of new games to boost revenues and keep the public interested.

As with many types of gambling, state lottery games have clear socioeconomic disparities. In general, higher income people play more than lower-income people. However, the majority of lottery players and revenues come from middle-income neighborhoods. People in low-income neighborhoods do not play the lottery at significantly different rates from those in higher-income neighborhoods, but they are far less likely to participate in other forms of gambling.