The California Lottery is breaking sales records. This year, revenues will soar to an estimated $6.9 billion. The recent boom has been fueled by a wave of gigantic jackpots. Newer games like Powerball and a $30 scratch ticket offer huge prizes, and California’s lottery players have responded by gambling more and more. Surging revenue should be good news for the state’s schools, the lottery’s only beneficiary. Yet even as ticket sales have skyrocketed, California schools aren’t seeing much of a return on that investment. Contributions to education by the lottery are essentially unchanged from 12 years ago, even though revenues are up by billions because lawmakers changed the rules governing the lottery in 2010. You can read more about the California Lottery in KPCC/LAist’s deep dive.

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