NYT editorial: The Super Lottery Is No Prize
The chance to bet your hard-earned money at unfavorable odds was once mostly limited to casinos in Nevada and Atlantic City. Today there are slot machines on Native American reservations from California to Connecticut and poker on casino boats on the Mississippi.
Increasingly, however, it is the humble and ubiquitous lottery that looks like the most insidious form of gambling.
Lawmakers pretend that lotteries make new taxes unnecessary. But lotteries are a tax, an inefficient, badly targeted one that is having a devastating impact on poor communities and beyond. One-third of all calls to Massachusetts’ gambling hot line come from lottery players.
A new trend is making this bad situation far worse. As sales of the $1 lottery ticket began to wane, the games’ designers cynically suggested that states up the ante, and the buzz, to as high as $50 for one scratch-off ticket. These games often offer many relatively small payouts — Texas’s $50 lottery has thousands of prizes ranging from $50 to $50,000 — and snag more players.
These new super lotteries are especially dangerous. One study in Texas showed the more expensive tickets selling best in the most poverty-stricken ZIP codes, ones heavily populated with Hispanics and blacks. Money that should be used for food and housing goes up in a whiff of hope instead.
State lawmakers like to say that lottery revenues go to education. That doesn’t excuse the damage done. In any case, a large chunk of the revenues go to the lottery’s own expenses, including prize payouts and salaries. States, meanwhile, have failed to invest in treatment programs for people who lose their shirts, homes and dignity playing the lottery and other games the states have dreamed up.
They can dress it up all they want in slogans about buying a ticket and a dream. But the states are encouraging behavior that is too often addictive and ruinous for people who can least handle the burden.
Increasingly, however, it is the humble and ubiquitous lottery that looks like the most insidious form of gambling.
Lawmakers pretend that lotteries make new taxes unnecessary. But lotteries are a tax, an inefficient, badly targeted one that is having a devastating impact on poor communities and beyond. One-third of all calls to Massachusetts’ gambling hot line come from lottery players.
A new trend is making this bad situation far worse. As sales of the $1 lottery ticket began to wane, the games’ designers cynically suggested that states up the ante, and the buzz, to as high as $50 for one scratch-off ticket. These games often offer many relatively small payouts — Texas’s $50 lottery has thousands of prizes ranging from $50 to $50,000 — and snag more players.
These new super lotteries are especially dangerous. One study in Texas showed the more expensive tickets selling best in the most poverty-stricken ZIP codes, ones heavily populated with Hispanics and blacks. Money that should be used for food and housing goes up in a whiff of hope instead.
State lawmakers like to say that lottery revenues go to education. That doesn’t excuse the damage done. In any case, a large chunk of the revenues go to the lottery’s own expenses, including prize payouts and salaries. States, meanwhile, have failed to invest in treatment programs for people who lose their shirts, homes and dignity playing the lottery and other games the states have dreamed up.
They can dress it up all they want in slogans about buying a ticket and a dream. But the states are encouraging behavior that is too often addictive and ruinous for people who can least handle the burden.
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1 Comments:
Thanks for this inclusion. The gambling fad to finance government has long been a peeve of mine. I remember when I learned about government years ago and becoming acquainted with the term "banana republic." These bread-and-circus states were defined by low to non-existent taxes on the wealthy, crumbling infrastructure, obsession with sports and other extravaganzas, and huge state lotteries! I have no argument with the legalization of gambling, and even its use as a fund-raising tool for Indian tribes and charities can be seen to have some benefits that balance the many deficits for entities that become addicted, even as their customers do. But, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is a terrible philosophy of government, at any level.
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