Streaming service subscriptionsUS lottery ticket sales
American lottery ticket sales and American streaming subscriptions climbed together between 2007 and 2022 (r = 0.958), which is a sentence with two very different implications about how one spends one's evening. One is a small bet on escape; one is a monthly fee for the same thing. Both are paid at the gas station, albeit via different cashiers.
US lottery ticket sales grew from about $58 billion in 2007 to over $107 billion by 2022, with Powerball's multi-state jackpots and the scratch-off premiumization driving most of the growth; streaming subscriptions grew from essentially nothing (Netflix had 7 million subscribers in 2007, almost all DVD-by-mail) to over 247 million total US streaming subscriptions by 2022, exceeding the number of US households. The categories are linked by the same underlying consumer decision: the small, frequent, optimistic expenditure made mostly by people who can least afford it, in a period in which real wages stagnated and lottery jackpots and content libraries both grew.
A ticket is scratched. A playlist autoplays. Both small hopes, paid for monthly, at modest individual cost.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Streaming service subscriptions” vs “US lottery ticket sales” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
