US lottery ticket sales

US lottery ticket sales and TikTok app downloads have grown together with a correlation of 0.996 across six data points, which is barely enough to constitute a dataset but more than enough to suggest that the same impulse driving Americans to buy lottery tickets is also driving them to download an app that shows them 15-second videos of people dancing. Both activities promise a dopamine hit with minimal effort, and both have experienced explosive growth driven by the same smartphone-enabled culture of instant gratification.

Lottery sales grew from about 80 billion in 2018 to over 107 billion by 2023, boosted by mobile purchasing and record jackpots. TikTok downloads grew from about 400 million globally in 2018 to over 3 billion cumulative by 2023. Six data points of two exponentially growing phenomena will always produce a high correlation, and both trends are powered by the same infrastructure: the smartphone, the algorithm, and the human appetite for novelty. Both sell the possibility of virality—winning the lottery or going viral on TikTok—and both monetize attention at industrial scale.

Six data points of lottery tickets and TikTok is a correlation built on a dangerously small sample and a dangerously large coincidence. Both grew because smartphones grew, both sell hope through screens, and both exploit the same neurological reward pathways. The ticket costs two dollars, the download costs nothing, and the expected value of both is debatable. The algorithm decides. The jackpot eludes. The scroll continues.