Most States in the Union have lotteries, with the comeback of modern day lotteries in America beginning with New Hampshire, in 1964, so that today forty-four of our fifty States are now offering some form of a lottery within their State borders. Lotteries are big business within each State, that is to say, they are actively advertised and marketed, they are actively reported in media outlets, they are sold via a commission percentage by retailers, and the general availability and the convenience of purchasing lottery tickets is very convenient for their patrons. In fact, in our digital and electronic age, some States allow the purchase of lottery tickets online, or electronically, with the purchase or lottery tickets being allowed with either cash, debit card, or in some cases, even credit cards. Because States sanction lottery sales within their borders, they make it part of their mission statement to sell the "dual benefits" of playing the lottery, which is that you, the player, might become fabulously rich, and if not, you are doing a "good" deed by providing funds for educational or other government programs. This means, unlike alcohol or tobacco sales, which are never actively promoted by government agencies and, in fact, often have stringent government regulations attached to the sale and usage of said product, that the State is an active promoter of lottery tickets to their residents.
The fact of the matter is, that the State has a fiduciary duty to their denizens to do right by them, and not on the other hand to purposely or to inadvertently exploit them, or to deceive them, or to exacerbate situations to the advantage of the State, but that is, in fact, what lotteries actually end up doing. The State loves to sing the praises of all the benefits that the lottery ticket revenue brings to educational programs, and other general funds, as if the selling of lottery tickets has created this additional revenue out of thin air, but in actuality, lotteries are nothing more than a wickedly bad "shell game" in which those that are the poorest, the most uneducated, and the most gullible are lured into spending moneyunder the guise that the State knows best, when in truth they are being conned into wasting monies that they can ill-afford to waste, on "pipedreams" that will in reality simply vacuum money from their pockets into the State's coffers for re-distribution.
As bad as that is, the other tragic part of lotteries is that both the State as well as those that play the lottery has wasted their time and their money on an activity that has no good purpose behind it. The State sells the lie that the lottery is an easy and democratic way to raise funds instead of increasing taxes forthrightly or paring back their budget to align themselves better with fiscal reality; whereas the players of the lottery are encouraged to waste both their time as well as their money on an activity that is the antithesis of the puritan ethic, of hard work, dedication, and faithfulness; instead they are encouraged to give in to the temptation of the shortcut to wealth and glory, while obtaining neither.
The streets of misery are paved with those that believe that just one more roll of the dice, just one more turn of the card, just one more spin of the wheel, or just one more Powerball will change everything. It won't.