Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland found that lottery retailers are disproportionately clustered in lower-income communities in nearly every state. The investigation's analysis of cellphone location data shows that the people who patronize those stores come from the same kinds of communities.

Over the past two decades, state lotteries have nearly doubled in size, driving a multibillion-dollar wealth transfer from low-income U.S. communities to powerful multinational companies.