Features

SAN FRANCISCO — To minimize the pain of buying lottery ticket duds, people often console each other, saying at least the lost money goes to a good cause: public schools. 

Despite advertisements that once hailed the lottery as a major solution to California’s education funding woes, however, lottery revenues cover less than 2 percent of the state’s education budget. 

The lottery funneled nearly $1 billion to schools last year. That translates to about $144 per student from the lottery, but only 1.8 percent of the state K-12 education budget.When the lottery started in the mid-1980s, advertisements billed it as vehicle through which to aid poorly funded schools.