Lottery is a simple idea: Give each person in a group the same chance of winning by picking a number out of a hat or a machine. This can be done to select a winner in a contest, fill a spot on a sports team among equally competing players, or even to find housing units in a subsidized apartment complex or kindergarten placements at a good public school.

The game is popular in the United States, where you can purchase state-run lottery tickets at a variety of locations, from gas stations to check-cashing venues. Buying a ticket doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win, but the odds are incredibly low. Lottery games are designed to keep you coming back, and the way that happens, as with cigarette ads or video games, is by playing on your addictions.

For many people, purchasing a lottery ticket offers a high risk-to-reward ratio. They contribute billions to government receipts that could be spent on things like retirement or college tuition, and they might be able to win hundreds of millions of dollars for a small investment.

But the biggest draw of all is the hope that they might win, however improbable. It is that dream of wealth, of not having to work as hard, that fuels lottery play. It’s the same kind of dream that might explain why so many Americans, despite the irrational and mathematically impossible odds of winning, are willing to keep buying tickets, even though they know it will probably never happen.