Official Lottery

The lottery is one of the most popular state-sanctioned gambling activities, and in the United States there are 48 different lotteries. They are run by individual state governments and there is no national lottery organization. Some state-sponsored lotteries form consortiums to organize games that cover larger geographic footprints and carry higher jackpots. The two biggest such lotteries are Powerball and Mega Millions.

Lotteries have a long history. In the fourteen-hundreds, they were common in the Low Countries, where the proceeds helped build town fortifications and provide charity for the poor. But in the 1800s, religious and moral sensibilities turned against them. In addition, corruption became a significant factor. “As soon as one state legalized a lottery, it was very common for states around it to follow suit pretty quickly,” says Matheson. “And that really kind of set the stage for what we have now.”

The first modern, government-run lottery began in 1934 in Puerto Rico, followed 30 years later by the New Hampshire Lottery. In the early nineteen-eighties, as the nation’s tax revolt began to take hold, a number of states (including New Hampshire), citing fiscal crisis, passed laws permitting their lotteries. The federal government, which had previously banned the practice in the states, allowed it as long as the tickets did not cross state lines. Today, almost all state-sponsored lotteries use their revenue to support public education systems. In some cases, they also offer video lottery terminals.