In the United States, lotteries are state-regulated games that give players a chance to win a large sum of money by matching numbers. While many people play the lottery for fun, some find that it can become addictive and cause financial problems. The odds of winning are very low, and the cost of tickets can be prohibitive for some individuals. Moreover, lotteries can contribute to magical thinking and unrealistic expectations, making it easy for players to fixate on winning instead of working toward more practical ways to improve their lives.

Humans are adept at developing intuitive senses of the probabilities and rewards of risks and gains within their own experience, but this skill does not extend to the colossal scale of a lottery. When faced with incomprehensible odds, many people are prone to magical thinking or superstition, believe in luck and fate, or play on a hunch—and all of this has been scientifically proven.

In this study, we used a panel of individuals from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health to examine whether lottery playing correlates with certain demographic characteristics. Specifically, we tested for age, gender and race/ethnicity as predictors of lottery playing. We also tested for a variety of covariates, including education, marital status, cigarette smoking and alcohol and other drug use. Statistical models were created to evaluate the effect of these factors on lottery gambling. Overall, we found that males were more likely to engage in lottery gambling than females, and that age is a significant predictor of lottery playing as well. In general, the results of our study are consistent with other studies that have found gender and age to be predictors of problematic gambling behaviors.