Many people play lottery games every week, contributing billions of dollars to state coffers. But the odds of winning are incredibly low. Here are some tips to help you avoid losing your money:

First, choose a trustworthy person to act as pool manager. This person will be responsible for tracking pool members, collecting money, buying tickets, and selecting the numbers. It is also important to write out a contract for everyone to sign that clearly defines the rules of the pool and how winnings will be distributed. Finally, make sure to keep detailed records of the money that is collected for each drawing.

Lotteries have a long history, and their appeal grows as state budgets are stretched tighter by growing populations and rising inflation. But as Cohen explains, the real boom began in the nineteen-sixties when state governments found themselves facing financial crises that would require either raising taxes or cutting services—both of which were extremely unpopular with voters.

To avoid this, lawmakers turned to the lottery. As jackpots grew to impressively newsworthy amounts, advocates started to argue that it was only fair for the state to profit from gambling because people were going to gamble anyway—and that it was better to do so on a service like education than to raise taxes and anger voters. As a result, the lottery became, as Cohen puts it, “a budgetary miracle,” allowing states to finance existing services without incurring voter backlash.