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The modern lotteries were born in the nineteen-sixties as state governments came to realize that they couldn’t balance their budgets without either raising taxes or cutting services, which were wildly unpopular with voters. Amid this era of tax revolt and declining prosperity, states cast around for solutions that could fill their coffers without inflaming a national fervor against taxes.
Cohen describes the slick promotional campaigns that propelled lotteries into the public arena, which were largely based on inflated claims about how much money the games would raise for state coffers. He points out that, despite the hysterical media coverage that accompanied the first lotteries’ introduction, the initial revenue amounted to no more than two per cent of a state’s overall budget.
Lottery proponents emphasized that the money they were raising was dedicated to the welfare of children and other public programs. But these funds were just a drop in the bucket when compared to total state revenues, and they ended up paying for just one per cent of all state education spending.