Lottery is one of those things that you might think, as you’re driving down the highway and seeing those billboards, well, you know, people are just going to gamble. And it’s true that there is a certain inextricable human impulse to play the lottery and gamble, but there’s a lot more going on with these games than just gambling.

The basic lottery involves paying for a ticket, then having a random drawing of numbers. If you have enough of your numbers match the ones drawn, you win a prize. There are a few different ways to structure prizes, but most include a large prize and a number of smaller ones. Prizes are usually set before the lottery is promoted, and expenses like profit for the promoter and taxes or other revenues are deducted from the prize pool.

When it comes to marketing the lottery, state governments rely on two messages. One is that the money from the lottery is good for the state because it reduces the need to levy more onerous tax rates on middle and working class residents. The other is the notion that playing the lottery is a civic duty, that it’s something you should do to help out the kids or the community. These messages are meant to obscure how much these games actually erode wealth and increase inequality. They also obscure how disproportionately low-income and nonwhite residents play the lottery, contributing billions in revenue that could otherwise be used to pay for retirement and college tuition.