ABSTRACT
Today, lotteries are everywhere (see Figure 3.1), but their emergence is a recent historical development. If we time-travelled to a year as recent as 1963, the pervasively familiar imagery of lotteries would be non-existent. This is because they were outlawed for over 70 years in the United States (Clotfelter and Cook 1989). That is, until New Hampshire broke the streak. Confronted with one of the country’s least-funded public education systems, largely as a result of no state income or sales tax in addition to resistance of property tax hikes, its state legislators had few options other than to establish a lottery for much-needed funds (Nibert 2000). On March 13, 1964, Governor John W. King became the first player of the modern state lottery. Soon thereafter, New York adopted its own lottery in 1967. Then during the 1970s and 1980s, state lotteries spread like wildfire across the nation. In just these two decades, the number of state lotteries, including the District of Columbia, increased thirteen-fold-from two to 26. As we write this book, all but seven states operate their own lottery. Though much ink has been spilled on how this trend came to be, few lottery scholars connect it to broader trends in government finance. More specifically, what remains less understood is the obscure role lotteries play in the changing composition of American taxation. Even less is known about the role of race and racial antagonism in this great transformation. In this chapter, we provide a historical corrective that sees the emergence of lotteries through the lens of race.
