Many states use the lottery to raise revenue for social services. Lotteries are a fixture in our society, with Americans spending billions on tickets each year. Some people play for fun, but others believe that the lottery is their only way out of poverty. I’ve talked to a lot of lottery players, and they’re often pretty clear-eyed about the odds of winning. They have quote-unquote systems, and they buy tickets at certain stores, at particular times of day, and so on, all based on the idea that if they can find the right strategy, they’ll be able to make the big money.

But there isn’t a really good mathematical explanation for why these people spend so much money. The purchase of lottery tickets cannot be accounted for by decision models based on expected value maximization, since the prizes are typically less than the ticket cost. More general models based on utility functions defined on something other than lottery outcomes can account for the behavior, but they’re not very convincing.

Lotteries were first introduced demo slot in the post-World War II era, when states had bigger social safety nets and could afford to collect more revenue from their citizens. They were promoted as a way to help people out, and they’re still used that way today. It’s just that the odds are so incredibly low. It’s not worth the risk. And it’s certainly not a good long-term solution to income inequality. It’s time to talk about a better way.