{"id":23802,"date":"2021-01-16T02:14:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T02:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=23802"},"modified":"2021-01-17T13:48:32","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T13:48:32","slug":"mega-millions-jackpot-is-750-million-where-does-all-the-lottery-tax-revenue-really-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/mega-millions-jackpot-is-750-million-where-does-all-the-lottery-tax-revenue-really-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Mega Millions jackpot is $750 million \u2013 where does all the lottery tax revenue really go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liberty Vittert<\/a>, Washington University in St Louis<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Mega Millions jackpot drawing for Jan. 15 has soared<\/a> to US$750 million and counting. This makes it the second largest pot in Mega Millions history \u2013 surpassed only<\/a> by the $1.537 billion winning ticket in October 2018 \u2013 and the fifth largest lotto jackpot<\/a> ever in the U.S.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the 20th century, when lotteries first started in the U.S., they were sold to states a benefit to the American public<\/a>. That suggests that bigger and bigger jackpots should mean more tax dollars to spend on public services like education. <\/p>\n

But that isn\u2019t happening. So what\u2019s really going on?<\/p>\n

Big money, tiny odds<\/h2>\n

First, let\u2019s look at how lottery jackpots get so big. Since Sept. 15, 2020<\/a>, week after week, no one has drawn the winning numbers and the unclaimed pot rolls over into the following week. As the tickets keep getting bought, the pot gets bigger. <\/p>\n

You too have the chance to win the one of the biggest Mega Millions jackpots ever with the simple purchase of a $2 ticket. However, your chances are pretty slim. With a 1 in 300 million chance of picking the matching numbers, you are three times more likely to be killed by a vending machine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter and get expert takes on today\u2019s news, every day.<\/a><\/em>]<\/p>\n

An easier way to really wrap your head around these odds is to imagine a bathtub overflowing with white rice. Take one grain of rice, paint it gold and then bury it somewhere in the bathtub of rice. Now, have someone walk in the bathroom door, blindfold them and have them try, in one lucky dip, to pick out that single golden grain of rice.<\/p>\n

According to a 2016 poll, about half of Americans<\/a> play the lottery today, compared to almost 70% in the 1980s. That means the lottery needs to extract more money from fewer people \u2013 a worrying trend for lottery runners. <\/p>\n

Mega Millions decided to decrease each person\u2019s chances of winning<\/a>, in order to grow the jackpots bigger. Before 2017<\/a>, players picked five numbers between 1 and 75 and then one number between 1 and 15. Now, each player picks five numbers between 1 and 70 and then one number between 1 and 25. This increases your chances of matching five numbers and receiving some sort of prize, while decreasing your chances of winning the whole shebang. What\u2019s more, the price of a ticket has doubled.<\/p>\n

Apparently, as the jackpot gets bigger, more people are willing to buy a ticket<\/a>. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2017 and 2018, the average American spent just under $70 a month on the lottery or betting pools<\/a>. And since only about half of the country plays, the average amount spent per player is higher.<\/p>\n

\n\"A<\/a>
\nYour chances of winning are incredibly small, but lottos are a reliable source of tax revenue for states.<\/span>
\nAP Photo\/Michel Euler<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Where the money goes<\/h2>\n

Mega Millions profits are split between 47 lottery jurisdictions \u2013 45 states, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Overall, 27 states earmark<\/a> some or all lottery revenue for education. In D.C., the lotto dollars go to a general fund; in Colorado, the funds go toward environmental protection; and in Kansas, some of the money pays for juvenile detention facilities. <\/p>\n

The lottery was promoted as a way to create more money for education<\/a> \u2013 but most state legislatures haven\u2019t been using the money as additional funding. Instead, they use the lottery money to pay for the education budget, spending the money that would have been used on education if there wasn\u2019t a lottery budget on other things. As a result, public schools rarely get a budget boost. <\/p>\n

An April 2018 study from the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research<\/a> showed that many states \u2013 including California, Florida and Michigan \u2013 simply substitute lottery revenues for normal appropriations. As of 2016, North Carolina devoted a smaller portion of its total budget to education than it did before starting the lottery. <\/p>\n

With states like New York getting a record $10 billion in sales<\/a> from the lottery in 2019, that is a pretty darn big bait and switch. <\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that it\u2019s time to ax the lottery. But it does beg the question: Is lottery money a good thing for a state? It does fund some government services, but it isn\u2019t always clear what. And the harm of gambling addiction<\/a> must be taken into account somehow. <\/p>\n

For now, I\u2019m off to buy a ticket for this Mega Millions jackpot. I mean, someone\u2019s gotta win\u2026.<\/p>\n

This is an updated version of an article originally published<\/a> on Oct. 20, 2018.<\/em>\"The<\/p>\n

Liberty Vittert<\/a>, Professor of the Practice of Data Science, Washington University in St Louis<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liberty Vittert, Washington University in St Louis The Mega Millions jackpot drawing for Jan. 15 has soared to US$750 million and counting. This makes it the second largest pot in Mega Millions history \u2013 surpassed only by the $1.537 billion winning ticket in October 2018 \u2013 and the fifth largest lotto jackpot ever in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":23803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[1996,9317,664,5270,9318,5089,9316,8794,546],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23802"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23809,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23802\/revisions\/23809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}