US lottery ticket sales

Between 2005 and 2023, US lottery ticket sales and the cost of a 30-second Super Bowl advertisement both climbed with the steady determination of two numbers that have nowhere to go but up, correlating at 0.9661 across nineteen years. The unified theory is that Americans are willing to pay increasingly absurd prices for increasingly unlikely outcomes, whether those outcomes involve winning $500 million or convincing someone to switch beer brands during a football game. Both are, in their way, bets on attention: the lottery sells the fantasy of wealth, and the Super Bowl sells the fantasy of relevance. Neither is a particularly good deal, and both are selling more than ever.

US lottery ticket sales grew from roughly $52 billion in 2005 to over $100 billion by 2023, driven by multi-state jackpot growth, online ticket sales, and aggressive state marketing as lotteries became increasingly important revenue sources for state budgets. Super Bowl ad costs rose from approximately $2.4 million per 30-second spot in 2005 to $7 million by 2023, reflecting the game's unique position as the last mass-audience live television event in a fragmented media landscape. Both are inflation-plus growth stories in entertainment spending, driven by the increasing concentration of attention and money in a small number of high-profile events.

When two forms of American entertainment spending both grow faster than inflation for nearly two decades, they will correlate regardless of whether they share an audience. The lottery and the Super Bowl ad are both monuments to optimism, and optimism, in America, only goes up.