Lotteries are a fixture of American culture. People spend upward of $100 billion a year on tickets, making it the most popular form of gambling in America. State governments promote lottery games as ways to raise revenue. But just how meaningful that revenue is in broader state budgets, and whether the trade-off to people losing money is worth it, are both debatable.

During the Revolutionary War, a series of lotteries were organized in order to raise funds for a variety of public projects. Lotteries were often criticized as a hidden tax, but Alexander Hamilton argued that “everybody would be willing to hazard trifling sums for the chance of considerable gain,” and that lotteries were a painless way for Congress to fund a colonial army.

People who play the lottery often believe that they are getting a good deal for their dollars. But the reality is that they are losing far more than they win. And even when someone does win, they rarely walk away a billionaire. In fact, there is a much greater chance of being struck by lightning or becoming the next Donald Trump than winning the mega-millions lottery jackpot.

The bottom quintiles of income distribution — people with the fewest dollars in their pockets for discretionary spending — spend the most on lottery tickets. But they also don’t have a lot of money to spare for other investments that might give them the hope of something better in their future, like units in a subsidized housing development or kindergarten placements at a reputable school.