US lottery ticket sales

American lottery sales climbing as worldwide phishing attacks also climb. Two industries selling improbable wins to optimistic targets, growing together for nearly two decades. One is licensed and the other is, technically, not.

US lottery sales grew from about 50 to over 100 billion dollars annually across this window as states expanded games, raised jackpots, and added scratch-offs. Global phishing attacks grew sharply across the same window as bot-driven scams scaled and AI-assisted social engineering matured. Two completely unrelated lines sharing a window because the same eighteen years scaled both a state-sponsored low-cost-hope category and an automated-fraud volume. Different jurisdictions, same playbook.

Both products promise unusual outcomes. The state-licensed one and the criminal one, both growing markets.