Jackpot: $2.5 million. That’s roughly how much, in today’s dollars, the winner of England’s first-recorded state lottery won on Jan. 11, 1569.
Not bad – though about 100 times less than Saturday’s estimated Powerball pot of $263 million.
At the time, Queen Elizabeth was searching for a way to raise funds to repair the country’s battered ports and harbors without needing to levy a costly tax on English citizens.
Lotteries were hardly a new concept – the idea of selling chances to win prizes was said to date back to ancient China. But Elizabeth was among the first known leaders to create a government-charted sweepstakes aimed at collecting funds for public projects.
Tickets were sold throughout London and the drawing was held in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the city, where everyone could watch. Sound familiar?
Now, 456 years later, countries across the world employ similar national lottery systems to generate revenue for everything from public education to environmental conservation efforts and infrastructure repairs.
In the U.S. alone, 45 states along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands run lotteries. Mega Millions and Powerball tickets are sold in each of those places, and their weekly drawings are televised for all to watch. About half of Americans buy a lottery ticket every year, according to a 2016 Gallup survey.
Yet, experts have questioned whether lotteries provide as much benefit to governments as they were once believed to. While money from lotteries often goes toward public programs, some argue that they act as a tax on low-income groups who are more likely to spend their money trying to strike it rich on lottery tickets. They question whether the government’s earnings from the games outweigh negative economic impacts on lower income groups who are more likely to wager their earnings.
