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In a six-month, state-by-state investigation, Money attempted to expose the inner working of the $32 billion national lottery industry.. The article revealed that states keep only about 34% of lottery revenues, devoting the rest of their take to prizes and administrative costs. Moreover, the 37 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have lotteries generally use the proceeds to plug budget gaps, not to cut taxes. And in most cases lottery money is not used for education, despite laws to the contrary in 18 states and promises made in dozens of states' lottery advertisements. During the past decade, Money found, lottery states have devoted a slightly declining share of their budgets to schools; in contrast, the proportion of state spending dedicated to primary and secondary education in non-lottery states edged up. (May, 1996)