Government as Bookie: Explaining the Rise of Lotteries for Revenue

Abstract

The principal new form of legalized gambling in the past twenty years is the lottery. This article uses a Marxist framework to explain the spread of state-sponsored lotteries since 1964. It develops a complex understanding of a variety of events in the past 20 years to explain the recent popularity of lotteries. Among the phenomena of interest are state and local fiscal crises, caused in part by deindustrialization and capital mobility, and a system-wide crisis characterized by falling real earnings and rising unemployment. The first crisis influenced some states to want to use lotteries for revenue, while the second crisis helped overcome opposition to the legalization of lotteries. Understanding the appeal of lotteries in each case requires brief analyses of the causes of fiscal crises and the ways in which needs are created and satisfied in capitalism.