When you play the lottery, you’re essentially betting that your luck will change and that you’ll win a huge jackpot. But the odds of winning are extremely low. And the cost of losing is high: Lottery plays can take money that you could use to save for retirement or pay off debt.

The modern state lottery began in New Hampshire, with officials looking to find alternative sources of revenue that didn’t require raising taxes. Despite initial resistance, lotteries have been embraced by states as a way to fund education, veterans’ health programs and other necessities without increasing taxes.

But there are serious problems with this model. Lotteries promote gambling and generate significant profits for state governments. But they do so at cross-purposes with the general public interest. Unlike most other forms of gambling, which are subject to laws designed to control addictions and other harms, state lotteries are operated as a business and promoted through slick marketing campaigns that target specific groups (convenience store operators, lottery suppliers who make heavy contributions to state political leaders, etc.).

As a result, the lottery’s popularity has become disconnected from any objective measures of a government’s financial health, and states are often pressured to increase revenues by adding more games and reducing prize amounts. It’s no wonder that in an era of growing economic inequality and widespread materialism, where dreams of wealth are increasingly common, the lottery has taken on an outsized role in American life.