From scratchers to the Powerball, the lottery is the most popular form of gambling in the United States, even though the odds of winning a big jackpot is infinitesimally small. Jonathan D. Cohen is a historian and the author of the book  For a Dollar and a Dream; State Lotteries in Modern America and he says it isn’t just the people playing the lottery who irrationally think the game will solve their financial woes, the states running the lotteries suffer from the same delusion.For a Dollar and a Dream