An official lottery is a public competition based on chance in which numbered tickets are sold and prizes awarded to the holders of numbers drawn at random. Often, the prize money is in cash or goods. The lottery is usually organized as a state or national fund raiser, and its operations are subject to government supervision.

A major part of Cohen’s story is how lotteries became the dominant funding source for many states, and how state officials have come to depend on them even as they deplore the “crooked” gambling business that has emerged around them. The emergence of the modern state lottery, he argues, was a result of late-twentieth century fiscal crises that made it impossible to balance budgets without either raising taxes or cutting services.

State officials looked for ways to raise funds that would not enrage anti-tax voters, and they discovered that the lottery could be a major moneymaker. It grew rapidly, and the popularity of lottery games spread throughout America.

In the beginning, lotteries were little more than traditional raffles. People bought tickets for a drawing at some point in the future, and the organizers had to decide whether to make the prize amount a fixed sum or a percentage of ticket sales. After the costs of running and promoting the lottery were deducted, the remainder went to the winners. As the competition developed, however, lotteries began to introduce innovations that dramatically transformed their operation.