Cons:

1. Most of the money wagered on lotteries is from people who don't see (or know) a better way to invest what little money they have that can be spared from day-to-day expenses. These people are usually not the wealthy, to say the least. This is why lotteries are sometimes called a tax on the financially illiterate. The easier it is to play the lottery, the more likely it is that money these folks could better use by investing it in real investments or in their education will end up frittered away on the lottery.

2. The larger the sums money flowing through a game, the more temptation there is for misuse and fraud. This can be countered by properly structuring the system, but the increased risk is still there.

3. The lottery is less of a poor choice financially when there are especially large jackpots that occur when nobody wins the jackpot many weeks (or months) in a row. If there are more players in a particular game there is less chance this will happen. Thus, on average, having fewer players is better for the players, at the expense of the lottery. Merging Mega Millions and Power Ball into a single national game offered in almost all states will make really huge jackpots less frequent.

Pros:

1. Flipping 'con' #3 above, when lottery players suffer lower likelihood of financial success, there is more money flowing into the game, which means the operator profits (oh well), but more to the point, the states offering the game also profit, which hopefully provides better services and/or lower taxes to the population at large.

2. It is more convenient for people who choose (wisely or less so) to play, when they don't need to travel to a neighboring state to purchase tickets for a lottery game they wish to spend money on.

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