The Lottery Challenge

Deadline: 2020-06-01
Award: $1,000,000
Open to: Everyone*

Lotteries around the world have been relatively slow to make changes that would create more positive effects for society.

There are two ways in which a lack of changes are preventing lotteries from having more positive effects on society:

Lotteries have problems that adversely affect individuals and communities. These problems adversely affect countless people. Changes can be made to fix or minimize these problems and reduce negative effects caused by lotteries.
Lotteries have problems that limit the amount of social good they create as fundraisers for good causes. These problems prevent lotteries from positively affecting countless people. changes can be made to fix or minimize these problems and increase positive effects created by lotteries.
Hundreds of millions of people play lotteries every year and an estimated 280 billion dollars were spent on lotteries tickets around the world in 2015 (1).

In the United States. people spend more money on lottery tickets annually than on sports tickets, books, video games, movie tickets and music- combined! (2)

Because lotteries operate on such a large scale, the effects caused by problems within lotteries are amplified and changes have the potential to create immense positive impacts for our society.