We’ve all fantasized about what we would do if we won the lottery: Fancy cars, exotic vacations, even buying your own island. Then there’s the more practical course, which would involve paying off debt and mortgages and putting the rest into savings and investments so that you could live comfortably for years to come.
Lotteries, which are determined entirely by chance, have long been a popular pastime, as well as an important source of income for some governments. Though some outlaw them, others endorse them and organize state and national lotteries to raise money for public works projects or for education, health care, and other programs. Many of these are organized to benefit specific groups of people, such as subsidized housing units or kindergarten placements, and they may be used to determine winning numbers for certain sports events.
In the nineteenth century, when America was still largely agrarian and the population of cities and towns grew rapidly, many states approved lotteries to fund public works and services. In many cases, these state-run lotteries were heavily influenced by local and regional political interests. Some of these were aimed at promoting economic development in a particular region, while others, such as New Hampshire’s Lottery Royale, were designed to counteract the nation’s growing anti-tax sentiment by providing low-income citizens with a way to lower their property taxes.