For a Dollar and a Dream

Abstract

Abstract Every week, one in eight Americans places a bet on the dream of a life-changing lottery jackpot. Americans spend more on lottery tickets annually than on video streaming services, concert tickets, books, and movie tickets combined. The typical story is that lotteries are a tax on poor people who do not understand basic probability. The reality is more complicated. For a Dollar and a Dream shows how the economic conditions of the late twentieth century led millions of Americans to judge the long odds of a jackpot to be their best chance at a new life. As the rich got richer and as rates of social mobility stagnated, many turned to the lottery as their only chance at the American Dream. Gamblers are not the only ones who bet on betting. Drawing on archives from 17 states, this book illustrates that states legalized gambling hoping to hit a jackpot of their own. As mid-twentieth-century prosperity unraveled, taxpayers and policymakers wanted government to provide public services but did not want to pay for them. Enter lotteries. Even as evidence emerged that lotteries provided only a small percentage of state revenue, and even as data mounted about their appeal to the poor, states kept enacting them, kept advertising, and kept adding new games, desperate for their long-shot gamble to pay off. For a Dollar and a Dream charts the untold history of the nation’s lottery system, revealing how players and policymakers alike got hooked on hopes for a windfall.