While the casting of lots has a long history in human society, lottery as a mechanism to distribute cash is much more recent. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when America was being built, lotteries were a popular source of capital to finance everything from roads to jails, hospitals to factories, and colleges to universities (Thomas Jefferson held a lottery to retire his debts, Benjamin Franklin used one to buy cannons for Philadelphia).

But once established, lotteries tend to evolve in a particular way: they become dependent on large and steady streams of revenue, which are difficult to replace; their policies are often ad hoc, with no general overview or plan; their officials’ authority is divided between the legislative and executive branches, and further fragmented within each; they begin operations with modest number of relatively simple games; and, as they become more established, they grow and expand into new games.

Many people are lured into playing the lottery with promises that their lives will improve if they win. Such claims are based on the idea that money is the answer to life’s problems, an idea that is at best misguided, and at worst dangerous. For the biblical prohibition against covetousness is very clear: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, his wife, his servants, his ox or donkey, or anything that is his. For the LORD your God hates covetousness.” (Exodus 20:17-18; 1 Timothy 6:10)

When it comes to picking numbers, Clotfelter recommends avoiding personal ones like birthdays and months, because they have patterns that make them more likely to repeat. He also warns against using statistics to predict the winning numbers, because there are millions of improbable combinations and it’s impossible to know which ones are most likely.