In the United States, most states have a lottery, which is a form of gambling wherein people try to win a prize by picking the correct numbers. The winning prize money depends on the number of numbers that match, and if there are multiple winners, it is shared between them. The odds of winning a lottery prize are generally very low, but some people have become rich through this game. A famous example is Stefan Mandel, who won the lottery 14 times. He was able to do so by bringing in investors, who helped him cover the cost of buying all possible combinations of tickets.
Lottery prizes are a combination of monetary and non-monetary values, so the purchase of a ticket could make sense for an individual if the expected utility of the non-monetary value is high enough. If the disutility of a monetary loss is also sufficiently high, however, then the purchase may not be rational.
State governments run lotteries as businesses, and their advertising necessarily focuses on persuading target groups to spend their money. This approach raises concerns about the negative impacts on the poor and problem gamblers, but also puts the promotion of gambling at cross-purposes with the state’s objective public welfare functions. The fact that many state government officials grew up in a world with lotteries makes it even harder for them to adopt a coherent policy on gambling. Consequently, few, if any, states have a clearly defined “lottery policy.” Instead, the evolution of lotteries happens piecemeal, with little or no general oversight.