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People in the United States spent upward of $100 billion on lottery tickets last year, making it the country’s most popular form of gambling. But what does this money do for state budgets, and is it really a boon for kids? In this article, David Cohen takes a close look at the role of lotteries in American society.

He begins by examining the historical roots of this modern form of gambling. In colonial America, the lottery was a popular way to raise funds for everything from town fortifications to building churches. The practice was even used to finance Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. And the Continental Congress attempted to use a lottery in order to pay for the Revolutionary War.

Lotteries remained popular in the 18th century, and by the early nineteenth century, they were increasingly common. The reason, Cohen argues, is that a growing awareness of the money to be made in the business collided with a crisis in state funding. Amid rising population growth, inflation, and war costs, many states were finding it hard to balance their budgets without raising taxes or cutting services.

This led to a surge in public interest in lotteries, which could be promoted as a painless alternative to higher taxes or budget cuts. But as Cohen demonstrates, these campaigns were often misleading. For one thing, they wildly exaggerated the impact of lottery revenues on state budgets. For example, in California, where a high-profile campaign touted the lottery as a boon for education, lottery revenue only covers about five per cent of the state’s K-12 spending.