Tariffs, trade wars, and the reality of affordability… welcome to the holiday season in America, where the art of scraping by takes on a festive sheen.
Each year, as December approaches, something curious happens: lottery sales surge. A recent study found that 68% of people participate in holiday lotteries, and the same number say they buy more tickets at the end of the year than at any other time. In Massachusetts, the week leading up to Christmas is consistently one of the highest-grossing weeks for instant-ticket sales. (National data shows Massachusetts spending an astonishing $1,037 per person on lottery tickets—Rhode Island follows at a distant $627.)
Even before today’s turbulence—tariffs, trade disputes, stock-market jitters, and the relentless upward creep of basic expenses—millions were already living precariously. As Marty Stuart sings, “there’s too much month at the end of the money,” a sentiment that lands heavier now than ever. The gap between the haves and the have-nots widens; side gigs proliferate; anxiety continues its slow, steady rise. Against this backdrop, the dream of hitting a scratch-ticket jackpot becomes a small, fragile lifeline—an imagined escape hatch from the grind.
Nowhere is this yearning more visible than in Massachusetts, where residents buy more scratch tickets per capita than any state in the nation. It’s a testament to a collective, if quixotic, belief that a few dollars and a silver coin might reveal a life-changing reroute.
But this ritual—heightened in the glow of holiday lights—has deep roots. As we mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, it’s worth remembering that lotteries are woven into the country’s origin story. The first authorized lottery in Colonial America was held in Boston in 1745. Every one of the original colonies used lotteries to fund public projects, and early federal initiatives even relied on them. One such venture, the National Lottery, intended to beautify Washington, D.C., ultimately reached the Supreme Court in Cohens v. Virginia, a landmark case that affirmed federal supremacy and solidified the Court’s authority over state decisions involving federal issues.
Today, the hopes invested in a scratch ticket are mirrored in the chaotic fragments left behind—the tiny, bright flecks of discarded coating. After the scraping, what remains if there’s no prize? Only debris. And what becomes of the hope? It too scatters, joining the evidence of a ritual as old as the nation itself: Americans chasing possibility, however small, in the act of economically “scraping by.”
