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State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

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Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#31

Post by aaomidi »

grubbs wrote: post #27
david2ndaccount wrote: post #11

The argument for the state having a monopoly on lotteries is that if there wasn’t a legal lottery illegal lotteries would proliferate. Thus to protect people, the state should run it as it would then be guaranteed to be fair and free of the criminal element (mobsters, etc.). Ideally, the lotto would just take in enough to pay the winners and administrative expenses. However, most states have abused this monopoly and…

The commercials I see here for the DC/VA lottery are quite disgusting. I'm "kind of" fine with the state running it. But they should not be advertising on TV.

Yep. They use dark patterns and FOMO to push people.

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#33

Post by ISL »

grubbs wrote: post #27
david2ndaccount wrote: post #11

The argument for the state having a monopoly on lotteries is that if there wasn’t a legal lottery illegal lotteries would proliferate. Thus to protect people, the state should run it as it would then be guaranteed to be fair and free of the criminal element (mobsters, etc.). Ideally, the lotto would just take in enough to pay the winners and administrative expenses. However, most states have abused this monopoly and…

The commercials I see here for the DC/VA lottery are quite disgusting. I'm "kind of" fine with the state running it. But they should not be advertising on TV.

Washington State Lottery has a slogan, "It's good to play!"

It really should be, "Playing the lottery is a pretty terrible idea and we're going to, on average, take your money. If you still want to play, fine, but cheeseburgers really are better than lottery tickets. Wealthy people got wealthy by putting their money into index funds and savings accounts."

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#34

Post by dymk »

mullingitover wrote: post #29

Georgia's lottery[1] is overall a pretty decent system, all things considered. > the lottery takes in over US$1 billion yearly. By law, half of the money goes to prizes, one-third to education, and the remainder to operating and marketing the lottery It pours massive amounts of money into Georgia's education system. It's not perfect but it has put hundreds of thousands of students through school. If we must transfer…

Well, they're ranked 26th in education, so at best it's just not the worst it could be

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#35

Post by giantg2 »

david2ndaccount wrote: post #11

The argument for the state having a monopoly on lotteries is that if there wasn’t a legal lottery illegal lotteries would proliferate. Thus to protect people, the state should run it as it would then be guaranteed to be fair and free of the criminal element (mobsters, etc.). Ideally, the lotto would just take in enough to pay the winners and administrative expenses. However, most states have abused this monopoly and…

Supposedly they use the revenues to help the needy groups. That's their reasoning anyways.

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#36

Post by ISL »

mullingitover wrote: post #29

Georgia's lottery[1] is overall a pretty decent system, all things considered. > the lottery takes in over US$1 billion yearly. By law, half of the money goes to prizes, one-third to education, and the remainder to operating and marketing the lottery It pours massive amounts of money into Georgia's education system. It's not perfect but it has put hundreds of thousands of students through school. If we must transfer…

Generally when lotteries "fund education", it can enable legislatures to allocate tax money that had previously gone to education to other priorities. This shift can turn lotteries into a de facto tax on being bad at math.

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#37

Post by mod »

grubbs wrote: post #27
david2ndaccount wrote: post #11

The argument for the state having a monopoly on lotteries is that if there wasn’t a legal lottery illegal lotteries would proliferate. Thus to protect people, the state should run it as it would then be guaranteed to be fair and free of the criminal element (mobsters, etc.). Ideally, the lotto would just take in enough to pay the winners and administrative expenses. However, most states have abused this monopoly and…

The commercials I see here for the DC/VA lottery are quite disgusting. I'm "kind of" fine with the state running it. But they should not be advertising on TV.

Someone's job is to increase the numbers.

I think they should spend the lottery money to hire someone who's job is to decrease the numbers.

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#38

Post by iudqnolq »

hetspookjee wrote: post #25
iudqnolq wrote: post #19

There's an interesting theory that the solution to this is to subsidize the lottery and improve the odds significantly. Take to the extreme and you could essentially implement UBI this way. I also don't think poor people are wrong to think a chance of getting a life-changing amount of money is a worthwhile luxury spend compared to the other available options. They may be wrong about the probability, but instead of fi…

I am very skeptic of this theory as a lot winners of lottery’s end up in enormous debt after few years due to horrible mismanagement of their funds. Why take this odd route and not just directly implement UBI if that is the goal?

That's a serious issue, but I think it's mostly caused by the long-term impact of poverty both socially and neurologically. If you grow up worrying about money you often learn instincts that screw you over if you luck out.

My uninformed guess underlying this is that making the payouts smaller and more frequent would solve this. First off, people would grow up in better communities. Second, I think if the payout wasn't advertised as "retire for life and be a rich person" people would face less social pressure to shower friends and family in gifts.

I think given no constraints giving everyone $1,000/month is best, but I think there's a fair argument giving 1/1000 people $1000/month (and alternating) is better than giving everyone $100/month.

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#39

Post by s17n »

mullingitover wrote: post #29

Georgia's lottery[1] is overall a pretty decent system, all things considered. > the lottery takes in over US$1 billion yearly. By law, half of the money goes to prizes, one-third to education, and the remainder to operating and marketing the lottery It pours massive amounts of money into Georgia's education system. It's not perfect but it has put hundreds of thousands of students through school. If we must transfer…

You don't have to transfer anything, though - just get rid of the marketing, take a couple percent to cover administrative expenses, and spend the rest on payouts. If you need money for education, tax people in a fairer way.

Re: State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds

#40

Post by femto »

It's true of gambling in general. A case study is the state of New South Wales in Australia: the state with the most poker (slot) machines per capita [1], in the country with he most poker machines per capita [2] (excluding gambling specific destinations such as Macau and Monaco). One poker machine in NSW for every 82 people, with an average loss of AU$1000 per adult per year. The losses (called profit for the hotels and clubs) are heavily skewed toward lower income local government areas [3]: a loss of about $AU2500 per adult per year. Considering that not everyone gambles the losses are even bigger for those who do gamble.

Granted an unknown amount of these losses are "business costs" for money launderers [4], but the damage to the community is still there from the associated crime.

[1] https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-australias-addic...

[2] https://www.australianethical.com.au/blog/australia-needs-to...

[3] https://chetre.org/2020/10/barriers-enablers-policy-gambling...

[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-10/nsw-crime-commission-...

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