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A store employee in Atlanta holds Mega Millions lottery tickets, Monday, Oct. 22, 2018. Nobody has won the $ 1 billion jackpot at the Saturday night draw. l & # 39; history. (AP Photo / Mike Stewart)
The Mega Millions jackpot hit an "unknown territory" with a grand prize of $ 1.6 billion to be won in Tuesday's draw.
There is a simple explanation for this: in recent years, lottery administrators have changed the odds of big name drawings like Power Ball and Mega Millions, making them more difficult to win. bigger jackpots, as well as a huge sales ticket.
In the end, however, every lottery is essentially a tax, even if it is totally voluntary, that many taxpayers avoid by simply not playing. The Census Bureau tracks lottery expenditures, payments, and contributions to general funds since the mid-1990s as part of its annual survey of state government finances. We have collected these numbers in a handful of charts, below, that show how lottery spending has evolved over time and where it remains important today.
1. Total lottery expenses have more than tripled since 1995
(Christopher Ingraham's illustration for the Washington Post)
In nominal terms, total spending on state lotteries increased from $ 29.8 billion in 1995 to $ 72.7 billion in 2016, the latest year for which the census has data. Part of this increase is due to the fact that more states are now offering lotteries. In 1995, only 36 states had a lottery. Today, 44 of them do it. The last state to add a lottery was Wyoming, in 2013.
2. Per capita lotto spending doubled
(Christopher Ingraham's illustration for the Washington Post)
The $ 29.8 billion spent by the Americans in the lottery in 1995 was about $ 112 per capita. Today, per capita spending is up to $ 225 per year. Again, this is partly due to the fact that more states have jumped on the lotto train.
These are per capita figures, representing every man, woman and child in the country. The average lottery player spends a little more than that: if we subtract the 73 million people under 18 and divide the remaining 250 million into two (since Only 49% buy a lotto ticket in a given year), that's $ 600 a year in expenses for the average lotto player. Some survey data show that a disproportionate share of ordinary lottery players is in low income brackets.
3. Where do people spend the most money on the lottery?
This figure of $ 225 also masks many regional variations. In some states, per capita lottery spending is much lower, at around $ 90 or less. But in others, it is quite high: Mbadachusetts is at the head of the country with an incredible annual expenditure of $ 767 per capita. Then come West Virginia ($ 594), Rhode Island ($ 513), Delaware ($ 421) and New York ($ 421).
4. Where does the lottery money go?
In 2016, just under one-third of the state's typical lottery was paid into the state's general fund to fund government programs. This share has been declining slightly since the late 1990s, when about 37% of the lottery revenue was paid directly to the states.
Conversely, the share of earnings gains increased: 64% of lottery revenues were returned to the stock exchanges in 2016, compared to 58% in 1995. The share of revenue paid to administer lotteries oscillated in the five figures.
5. How much do states depend on lottery money?
In some states, lottery products account for a large share of total state revenue. In Rhode Island, for example, it is 4.5%, the highest in the country. In West Virginia, this figure is 3.6% and Delaware lotto provides 3% of state revenue.
The geographic structure is similar to per capita spending: States where people spend a lot of money on the lottery tend to be the most dependent on their funds.
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