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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

#51

Post by pm90 »

basilgohar wrote: post #13

This is true as is the nature of "food deserts" in the poorer neighbors, at least where I live – there are higher concentrations of convenience stores, drive-thrus, and gas stations that feature items like tobacco products, alcohol, and lottery tickets that similarly exploit the local populations impulse purchases and eat up what little income they earn from two or more low-paying jobs. It's viciously cyclical and th…

Honestly its so much wasted human capacity. Its not even the case that we don’t have enough: there’s enough food to adequately feed everyone. Its a logistical problem and when markets are left to their own they will obviously lead to situations where only the cheapest products win out (not the most nutritious).

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

#52

Post by samtho »

giantg2 wrote: post #35
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.

In California, they give a certain amount to schools, but the state legislature uses lottery projections to justify slashing budgets to the public school system. Kind of thinking this is not how it was envisioned to work.

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

#53

Post by josephg »

femto wrote: post #40

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…

The "You Can't Ask That" episode on gambling in Australia was a massive eye-opener for me. They interview a bunch of people who are lifetime gambling addicts. Its shocking how badly its ruined their lives.

I have no idea how many people who gamble regularly have a problem with it; but I'd support banning gambling entirely.

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/you-can-t-ask-that/series/2/vi... (Does iView work outside Australia?)

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

#54

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Huh? The whole point is to generate revenue. Always was. Shitting down numbers rackets was just a side benefit used to sell the lotteries.

The horse is totally out of the barn on gambling. We’ve decided that it’s all good. I was at an MLB game this weekend and they go through the betting lines for different games in the scoreboard before the game. It’s fully mainstream.

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

#57

Post by bogomipz »

absherwin wrote: post #18

There's a simple answer: Offer a lottery with a high payout rate and flatten jackpots to the extent they don't cause a shift into other worse sorts of gambling. The total amount of money transferred to support government programs makes up less than 0.5% of total government revenue; it's trivially replaceable.

>"Offer a lottery with a high payout rate and flatten jackpots to the extent they don't cause a shift into other worse sorts of gambling"

What is meant here by "flattening" jackpots? And how does it help?

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

#58

Post by Spooky23 »

samtho wrote: post #52
giantg2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In California, they give a certain amount to schools, but the state legislature uses lottery projections to justify slashing budgets to the public school system. Kind of thinking this is not how it was envisioned to work.

Of course. States use cash budgets. If I give you a dollar, the general fund doesn’t need to.

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

#59

Post by ISL »

FredPret wrote: post #45
ISL wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

... or running lotteries

Touché!

Washington State Lottery, "It's good to take your money!"

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

#60

Post by yunohn »

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…

How is the lottery like UBI? This is similar to crypto maxis gambling on shitcoins and saying “generational wealth opportunity”.

Both of these are the siphoning of money from large volumes of people to a few people, who are the “success stories” used to dupe the next set of people.

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