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For a Dollar and a Dream

Audiobook
Nonfiction: Politics
Unabridged   8.5 hour(s)
Publication date: 10/11/2022

For a Dollar and a Dream

State Lotteries in Modern America

Available from major retailers or BUY FROM AMAZON
Digital Download ISBN:9781696609340

Summary

This first comprehensive history of America's lottery obsession explores the spread of state lotteries and how players and policymakers alike got hooked on wishful dreams of an elusive jackpot.

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Product Description

Every week, one in eight Americans place a bet on the dream of a life-changing lottery jackpot. Americans spend more on lottery tickets annually than on video streaming services, concert tickets, books, and movie tickets combined.

The story of lotteries in the United States may seem straightforward: tickets are bought predominately by poor people driven by the wishful belief that they will overcome infinitesimal odds and secure lives of luxury. The reality is more complicated. For a Dollar and a Dream shows how, in an era of stagnant upward mobility, millions of Americans turned to the lottery as their only chance at achieving the American Dream. Gamblers were not the only ones who bet on betting. As voters revolted against higher taxes in the late twentieth century, states saw legalized gambling
as a panacea, a way of generating revenue without cutting public services or raising taxes. Alongside stories of lottery winners and losers, Jonathan Cohen shows how gamblers have used prayer to help them win a jackpot, how states tried to pay for schools with scratch-off tickets, and how lottery advertising has targeted lower income and nonwhite communities.

For a Dollar and a Dream charts the untold history of the nation's lottery system, revealing how players and policymakers alike got hooked on hopes for a gambling windfall.

Author Bio

Jonathan D. Cohen is a program officer at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He is coeditor of All In: The Spread of Gambling in Twentieth-Century United States and Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen. He received his PhD in history from the University of Virginia.