And, they add, the state could use that money to improve public schools. New Hampshire kicked off the modern lottery era in 1964. Thirty-six other states and the District of Columbia have followed. North Carolina is the largest state without a lottery. About half the total revenue goes to prizes, with a third saved as profit.
States often use it for public education.
Whatever is left goes to operating the lottery, including promotions and commission for retailers. The strength of religious conservatives kept the South free of lotteries for a long time, a bulwark that new residents from other regions have been slowly eroding, said Thad Beyle, a political analyst with UNC-Chapel Hill. To a lot of politicians' minds, it didn't make sense to pick on that crowd. Fueling the lottery movement is the state's finances. In a measure he had introduced last week in the state Senate, lottery proceeds would go toward preschool for poor children and smaller classes in primary grades.