The lottery is a fixture of American life. People spend upwards of $100 billion a year buying tickets, making it the most popular form of gambling in the country. States promote lotteries as a way to raise revenue, which they do indeed use for some purposes. But just how meaningful that money is and whether it’s worth the trade-off with citizens who lose a great deal of their own hard-earned cash, deserves scrutiny.

When we think of a lottery, we typically picture the game that involves a random draw of numbers and a prize for those who match them. We also think of the sliver of hope that comes with purchasing a ticket, which is why so many Americans play. But that sliver of hope comes at a cost, and it’s a significant one for a large proportion of players, who are disproportionately low-income, less educated, and nonwhite. These folks are not a small group, either: as much as 50 percent of Americans buy a lottery ticket every week, and many of them spend a good portion of their incomes doing so.

The idea of making decisions and determining fates by casting lots has a long record in human history, but the first public lotteries to offer prizes in the form of money probably date back to the 15th century in the Low Countries. These early lotteries were designed to raise funds for local projects, and they generally offered tickets in exchange for food or other items of varying value. Since then, state-run lotteries have grown in popularity and complexity. Today, virtually all states operate them, and the general public has come to accept them as a legitimate and even desirable part of government.