The lottery is a financial game in which people pay for tickets and then hope to win a prize by matching randomly spitted numbers. It is one of the few things we do as a society that relies on chance to determine winners. For many people, the lottery is just a fun way to fantasize about winning a fortune at a cost of a couple of bucks. But for some, particularly low-income Americans, the lottery can be a desperate attempt to escape from a system that offers them few opportunities for economic mobility.

This is one of the big questions that the lottery raises, and it is often overlooked when the lottery is defended by its proponents. They argue that states need revenue, and that allowing the sale of lottery games captures some of this inevitable gambling behavior. They also claim that lotteries are more ethical than other forms of gambling, because they don’t use bribes or entrapment.

But the evidence suggests that state lotteries are not ethical. They have long been a source of regressive revenue in the US, and they are also a major contributor to people’s addiction to gambling. The fact that a significant portion of the prizes are given to poor people is troubling. It is even more disturbing when those people believe that the lottery is their only shot out of poverty. Some argue that this belief obscures the regressivity of the lottery and makes it less credible when its advocates try to defend it.