For a Dollar and a Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America

by Jonathan D. Cohen

This first comprehensive history of America's lottery obsession explores the spread of state lotteries and how players and policymakers alike got hooked on wishful dreams of an elusive jackpot.

Every week, one in eight Americans place a bet on the dream of a life-changing lottery jackpot. Americans spend more on lottery tickets annually than on video streaming services, concert tickets, books, and movie tickets combined.

The story of lotteries in the United States may seem tickets are bought predominately by poor people driven by the wishful belief that they will overcome infinitesimal odds and secure lives of luxury. The reality is more complicated. For a Dollar and a Dream shows how, in an era of surging inequality and stagnant upward mobility, millions of Americans turned to the lottery as their only chance at achieving the American Dream. Gamblers were not the only ones who bet on betting. As voters revolted against higher taxes in the late twentieth century, states saw legalized gambling as a panacea, a way of generating a new source of revenue without cutting public services or raising taxes. Even as evidence emerged that lotteries only provided a small percentage of state revenue, and even as data mounted about their appeal to the poor, states kept passing them and kept adding new games, desperate for their longshot gamble to pay off. Alongside stories of lottery winners and losers, Jonathan Cohen shows how gamblers have used prayer to help them win a jackpot, how states tried to pay for schools with scratch-off tickets, and how lottery advertising has targeted lower income and nonwhite communities.

For a Dollar and a Dream charts the untold history of the nation's lottery system, revealing how players and policymakers alike got hooked on hopes for a gambling windfall.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, History, Economics

295 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2022

About the author

Professor of Philosophy at University of California, San Diego

Reviews

[Thomas Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would rate this book at 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

If you get past the first 10% where this book seems to repeat itself this book gives you an interesting, look into the history of lotteries in various forms. While there have been forms of lotteries clear back into biblical times the focus of this is lotteries and the industry that were developed in the second half of the 20th century with the premises that to institute these lotteries that would fill coffers that were short vast some's of money. This would be to cover for multiple things all the way to single projects like education with the fear of retaliation on politicians who would raise taxes or institute new taxation. Another thought was it would take money away from the criminal element also. As you will see early those who proposed these lotteries made wild predictions about the money that would be generated and even having examples from other states and see their results and choose still to ignore the evidence and believe theirs will be different. The author shows how lotteries are there to take advantages of minorities and the poor to achieve their goals. It was also disturbing to see the efforts of one lottery company to get lotteries installed in many states. I also found it interesting how those that claim high morality would turn a blind eye when it came to getting approval for a state lottery and the strange bed fellows it created. There will be some who read this that will find fault, but the author makes compelling arguments. This well researched.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A repetitive, but informative book.
The author often repeats the same points over and over. Also, the structure of each chapter could be tightened up. Discuss a topic, tangent to relative offshoot of topic, back to topic with repetitive statements.

Maybe I’m being picky. Shrug.

Still an interesting book on how lotteries spread across the States and the hopes and dreams they brought to people and States’ budgets.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit repetitive, but thankfully it is rich in information.

[Gil Hamel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few months ago I happened to be listening to public radio while driving in Boston and caught the tail end of their airing of the first episode of “Scratch and Win”, a podcast about the Massachusetts state lottery produced by WGBH. I ended up listening to the whole series because it was really good, and it was in particular I was fascinated to hear about how recently state lotteries came into being, when to me they feel like such a basic part of American society. I picked up this book because Cohen was interviewed on Scratch and Win, and I found him to be engaging and I wanted to know more on this topic.

On some level I expected a real soup-to-nuts catalogue of how lotteries have existed in American history, and it’s kinda not that. Apart from a little bit of background in the introduction (Denmark Vesey bought his freedom because he won a lottery, which is crazy!) this is concerned solely with the modern era of state lotteries that started in 1964 (in New Hampshire, just saying), which I think is a sensible choice. But even for that era, it’s not a straight-up timeline so much as it’s an anthology: here’s how lotteries came about from legislators trying to solve a problem, here’s lotteries they were born from and in turn shaped American culture, here’s discussion of the history and problems with lottery advertising. Scratch and Win is also kind of anthological in this way, and while I do still think I’d read a more timeline-y history, what they’re doing here works.

Cohen’s analysis is a big plus here. Time and again, he comes back to this ironic(?) parallel: the legislators who wanted to legalize lotteries wanted to get free revenue at basically no political cost. Like the players of the lottery, they were in search of “something for nothing,” and like the players they very rarely got anything like the payoff they dreamed of. I was also impressed that Cohen was willing to take a stance at the end and say no, lotteries just shouldn’t exist, it’s not worth the negative impact. He could’ve easily just done the pros and cons and left it as an exercise for the reader, but he made the bolder choice, and I’ve got a lot of respect for that. Pretty likely I pick up his book on sports gambling at some point, although I did buy like four books on this trip that I should probably get going on first.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This well-researched and well written analysis of the rise and effects of lotteries in America shows first of all that state-run lotteries are a pretty bad deal but one we are unlikely to get rid of. The author shows that they are a highly regressive form of revenue that consistently fails to live up to the promises of its proponents. At a deeper level, he explores how the lotteries arose in a time when "the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" became the (almost certainly unattainable) goal of many Americans. Worst of all, he shows that lottery dreams arose because of the collapse of an economic system that had given people a chance to rise on merit and hard work. Now their only hope is to hit the lottery, which is next to impossible.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars | Reads like a smoothly written dissertation both in that some of the same (valid) points are brought up repeatedly via different approaches and sub-points and it read quite smoothly. If I never learn anything else about Georgia and its lottery history, I'll be good with that. Racism is never a surprise by the way when it comes to human-driven systems; ish is tiring though. Comprehensive, thorough, and with several moments of well-articulated, cutthroat humor (he CLOWNS people, their hypocrisy, and their lack of reason quite effortlessly). Quality read.

[Rayfes Mondal · Rating 3 out of 5]

An in-depth history of the lottery in the US with a shorter intro about the larger past of the lottery. Withholds judging lottery players and says the loss of upward mobility in the US results in more people playing the lottery since it's the only way they can see to be come wealthy even if the odds are miniscule. Ended up being too in-depth for me and I started skimming.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a good book.
An interesting and in depth look into the history of lotteries esp in recent US history.
It was very well written and super informative.

Only down side is that it can feel a bit repetitive at times.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

✨ 3.5 Stars✨ Interesting analysis of a topic I knew nothing about. Appreciated the author’s discussions along the way of the American dream and national obsession with wealth. Long-winded and quite repetitive though - could have been an NYT essay.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some interesting info but wasn't a very compelling read.

[Joseph K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topic, but reads like a textbook.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit repetitive, but an interesting book about what seems to be an overlooked problem.

[Barbpie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dense and academic but readable.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seemed over-long and in need of a good edit.