Purchasing lottery tickets is one of the cheapest ways to risk your money for a chance to win big. Yet it may also be one of the riskiest. Besides the fact that the odds of winning are extremely slim, lotteries divert funds from savings or other investments. And for many people, purchasing a ticket or two can add up to thousands in foregone savings over the long term.

Historically, states adopt lotteries to raise revenue, not out of a desire for social good but because they want to expand their array of services without raising taxes on middle- and working-class people too much. This dynamic is particularly prevalent in the immediate post-World War II period, when many states were expanding their social safety nets.

In general, state governments tend to promote their lotteries by highlighting that the money they generate is a form of “painless” taxation: It comes from people voluntarily spending money on lottery tickets, not government coercion (taxation). But this argument is misleading. The truth is that state governments have adopted lotteries even when they are in solid financial shape.

In most cases, lottery revenue is a relatively small portion of state budgets. But even when it is a larger portion, it’s a regressive source of revenue: It disproportionately takes money from low-income households and gives it to wealthier ones. And the money is not used to help poor people; it’s mostly spent on a variety of state programs, including education, health care and public works.