“We’re normal human beings,” said Cindy Hill on Friday, moments after she and her husband, Mark, posed with an oversized check for $293,750,000. “We’re common,” she added. “We just have more money.”

The check, of course, represented their half of the $588 million Powerball jackpot, which the Hills had just won, along with another, as yet unidentified, winner. From one point of view — the point of view of lottery officials — you couldn’t ask for more ideal winners than the Hills.

Mark works for a meatpacking plant. Cindy is a clerical worker who was laid off in June 2010. When they were introduced to the news media on Friday, their adopted daughter in tow, they talked about how the money might allow them to adopt another child. They said they were going to help various relatives pay for college. They insisted that the money wouldn’t change them. The only extravagance they mentioned was a red Camaro that Mark wanted. They made winning the lottery seem downright heartwarming.

But it’s not. On the contrary, lotteries may well be the single most insidious way that state governments raise money. Many of the people who buy lottery tickets are poor; lotteries are essentially a form of regressive taxation. The odds against winning a big jackpot are astronomical — far worse than the odds at an Atlantic City slot machine. The get-rich-quick marketing — by government, let’s not forget — is offensive. One New York Powerball ad shows a private jet emblazoned with the words “Kevin’s Airline.” The tag line reads: “Yeah, that kind of rich.”