What the lottery sells — and who pays

The “what I’d do if I won the lottery” game is a fun one. You get to make up a little dreamland where you are suddenly awash in unimaginable riches. Your biggest problems become figuring out where to buy your second mansion, picking out your yacht, and finally cutting off that one family member who’s a real leech. It’s a fantasy so good it might even make you buy a ticket. The exercise can also be a trippy one. You know you’re not going to win. Really. Except maybe there’s a small sliver of hope that you will. I mean, somebody has to win, right? The ugly underbelly here is that sneaking feeling that the lottery, however improbable, may be your only way up. What does it mean when the longest of shots is the only one people feel they’ve got?The lottery is a fixture in American society. People in the US spent upward of $100 billion on lottery tickets in 2021, rendering it the most popular form of gambling in the country. States promote lottery games as ways to raise revenue — that ticket...