
The lottery is a tax, an inefficient, regressive, and exploitative tax - mgalka
http://metrocosm.com/state-lotteries-high-cost-low-return-and-absurdly-dishonest/
======
murbard2
I'm glad the article makes the _very_ important distinction that: "The lottery
is not a tax. The inflated price of lottery tickets is."

I thought the article was going to be yet another claim that "a tax on people
who are bad a math", I was pleasingly surprised that it focused on the tax
created by the state monopoly, not on the fact that lotteries have negative
EV.

The main counter I would offer to the article is that it isn't clear that
there would be much of a "social" benefit in opening the lottery to
competition. With the variance so high, and the players paying little
attention to the odds, it's likely that the result would simply be a tiny
amount of people earning about 35% more when they hit large prizes, and the
rest spending the same amount of money on lottery.

~~~
fredkbloggs
Yes, but still. The essence of a tax is its involuntary nature. The mafia's
numbers racket was a tax, or would be but for the mafia's lack of legitimacy
(if you consider being a legitimate government a precondition for levying a
tax). You played or someone broke your legs or burned down your house. Last
time I checked, no state is doing anything like that. There are many things
wrong with state-run lotteries, but they're not a tax. If you don't like the
way the lottery is priced, don't play. Your kneecaps won't know the
difference.

~~~
murbard2
If tomorrow the government decides only it can sell gasoline, and it does so
with a 35% margin, that's strictly more restrictive than an excise tax.

~~~
fredkbloggs
I'm not saying that state monopolies are good. I'm saying that people need to
get over the idea that everything they dislike or disagree with is "a tax". It
isn't. A state monopoly on fuel would be almost impossible to avoid, and you
could reasonably assert that it's a tax (there would be debate, but your
position would be reasonable). After all, even if you don't yourself consume
fuel, almost every product you could possibly buy has to be transported from
somewhere, and most transportation services available today use fuel. A
lottery is nothing like that. The product, such as it is, does not form a
component of the cost of any other product. All you have to do to avoid giving
the state money is not play the lottery, which should be very easy since they
are very up front about the fact that a ticket is not only -ev but much more
-ev than any casino or cardroom game you could possibly play. If people
stopped playing, the state would either give up its monopoly or (in a classic
monopoly-monopsony dynamic) cut its prices. And in the meantime, ex-players
would be better off as well.

~~~
mgalka
Sounds like we are just talking semantics.

When you buy liquor, you pay the market price (call it $10) plus an excise tax
that the government adds on (let's say $2).

Imagine the government nationalizes the liquor business. The buy up every
liquor company, and continue operating them the same way as before ($10 price
+ $2 tax). I think anyone would agree that this $2 would still be considered a
tax.

Now let's say the government gets rid of the $2 tax, but bumps the price of
liquor up to $12. The tax is still there, it's just implicit now.

~~~
aianus
> Imagine the government nationalizes the liquor business.

I live in Toronto, no need to imagine :(

~~~
green7ea
If only it was simply 2$ and not what is closer to 10$.

------
exion
I occasionally buy lottery tickets just for fun. It's enjoyable for me to
fantasize about what I would do if I suddenly never had to worry about money
again. I think about quitting my job, going back to school and learning about
something I care more about (I didn't care for my major) and doing some
travelling. I only buy one ticket every month or so. This $1-$2 actually gives
me mental enjoyment, more so than a candy bar at least.

However, last time I bought one the woman next to me bought $80 worth of mega
millions tickets. To be blunt at the cost of sounding unkind, she looked like
she was a lower class individual. I truly felt bad for her (for reasons I
won't elaborate on for conciseness) and I thought about all the people
spending a decent sum of cash on something that is analogous to flushing money
down the toilet.

I think the lottery does much more harm than good to society as a whole and
should be done away with. The people who get into spending loads of money on
these tickets are ones who are - generally speaking - uneducated and in a
position where they don't have much going for them. Instead of being proactive
and trying to improve their lives (easier said than done though, i know), they
get caught up in this dream that destiny will save them from a life of
difficulty. Obviously those susceptible to addiction are most affected and
taken advantage of here, as mentioned by some other comments. It's not really
a "tax on the stupid" because these people are more of a cost to society by
wasting money and putting themselves in harder positions.

Not to mention the people who DO win the lottery don't often find themselves
living the peachy life they would expect.

~~~
titfn
I agree that lottery is bad for society but the only reason that the
government is doing it, I think, is because it was worst when organized crime
had control over it.

But I do think that the government should reinvest all profits in education
(not necessarily gambling related), gambling therapy, etc...

~~~
mcv
While having organized crime run lotteries is certainly bad, some of the
examples of predatory advertising mentioned in the article are absolutely
despicable and unworthy of a government.

If the government runs lotteries, it should only if they have ascertained that
a total ban would send lottery players into the arms of organized crime, and
government should only run those lotteries with the health of these addicts in
mind, and not with any kind of profit motive.

Advertising should be of the form: "If you absolutely have to play a lottery,
here's how to do it, but be aware that you will lose money and very likely not
win anything", and certainly not of the form: "This could be your ticket out
of this mess!"

~~~
titfn
completely agree

------
ucha
A tax is by _definition_ a compulsory contribution. The lottery is optional.
Thus it's not a tax.

~~~
jameshart
Consumption taxes are voluntary. You don't have to pay alcohol duty, or
tobacco duty, or fuel duty. You can just refrain from consuming alcohol,
tobacco or fuel.

In fact, a decent accountant will show you most taxes are voluntary...

~~~
ucha
There is a compulsory tax on alcohol but its consumption is voluntary. That's
like saying an income tax is voluntary because you can choose to not have any
income.

~~~
marincounty
For some individuals, especially with certain psychiatric disorders, moderate
use of alcohol to control an episode, especially a panic attack(true panic
attacks); is not a voluntary consumption.

The drug has been vilified, for good reason in many cases, but is used as a
sedative to the poor who don't have access to good doctors in too many
communities.

(I really don't want to debate this. I know when I had panic attacks 2-3
drinks would stop them. I have yet to meet a doctor who won't admit privately
that moderate, specific controlled use of alcohol is beneficial to for certain
psychiatric disorders. Doctors don't bring it up because it's just not worth
worth it. They are afraid of lawsuits because alcohol use carries so many
risks, like the real risk of the patient becoming an alcoholic.

(Just keeping it real Homies. If you are currently suffering from an anxiety
disorder(including some symptoms of PTSD, and the doctor is just offering a
heterocyclic drug(like Prozac), or a drug that really does nothing, like
Buspirone. Light, specific use of alcohol will help with some symptoms. Don't
abuse the drug. Don't start drinking every day, or drinking socially. You only
drink to alleviate specific symptomology. You need to save those liver cells
because you use alcohol differently from the rest of the population. In other
words; don't become a alcoholic? I'll get a lot of heat from this post, but
it's meant for individuals who are suffering, and this advice only goes to
individuals who have some self-control? If you didn't have self-control before
the illness, and life was just a big party, don't follow this advice. Specific
use of alcohol to control your symptomology will just result in your disorder
getting worse, and yes--you will end up homeless, or worse. I am not a
doctor.)

~~~
jacobolus
Alcohol is a great anti-anxiety drug and sedative, in small doses (like 1-3
drinks). That’s precisely why it has been so popular for thousands of years.

The problems with alcohol are (a) it just treats the symptom and doesn’t help
fix whatever underlying issue is causing the stress, (b) it’s easy to take a
far larger dose than necessary, far more often than necessary leading to
abuse, and (c) acute effects of a large dose and chronic effects of frequent
use are both highly destructive.

------
chimeracoder
> Lotteries are exempt from the Federal Trade Commission truth-in-advertising
> laws.

Honestly, this is the biggest case against the lottery, of all the things
listed in the article.

I can't remember the last time I saw an ad for the lottery on TV, let alone
something as ridiculous as the one from Illinois they show in the article. I
wonder how much of the problem would be fixed by fixing this, rather than
doing away with state lotteries altogether?

> if state governments are going to continue offering lotteries, they need to
> be regulated at the federal level and with the same standards as private
> businesses.

Some states actually _have_ privatized their lotteries. Illinois is one of
them, though they're changing that back now.

Ironically, the main "problems" that Illinois and New Jersey have reported
with this approach are decreased revenue and sales[0] (ie, the exact things
this article is trying to accomplish in the first place). So it seems that
privatizing the lottery systems would be another approach.

[0] [http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/04/06/chris-christie-
lott...](http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/04/06/chris-christie-lottery-
privatization-new-jersey-cost/)

~~~
mgalka
Illinois and New Jersey call it "privatization," but what they really did is
outsource the management to a private company.

Those lotteries are not privatized in the sense of opening it up to
competition.

~~~
chimeracoder
> what they really did is outsource the management to a private company.

> Those lotteries are not privatized in the sense of opening it up to
> competition.

Privatization typically refers to the management, not to competition. For
example, we say that electricity is privatized in NYC because it is managed by
a (highly regulated) publicly traded company, even though there is no
competition[0].

[0] There is now competition for the supply (though not delivery) via ESCOs,
but that is a very recent move.

------
csense
It's surprising that few people have pointed out that lotteries are
essentially _communist_ \-- the government owning a for-profit business.

If you believe in the free market, you can only have one of two logically
consistent positions on any and all forms of gambling -- either (1) open up
the market to any business that can prove it's adequately capitalized and the
odds of the games are as represented (e.g. in card games, the deck is standard
and not stacked; in lotteries, the winning tickets are randomly mixed in, not
given out to shill redeemers in exchange for kickbacks), or (2) ban all for-
profit gambling operations.

~~~
threatofrain
I don't understand why someone who 'believes in the free market' must accept a
binary position on 'free' market. In experimental design, you're supposed to
produce tasteful granularity of measurement conditions to capture the breadth
of a phenomena. Free vs. not-free is not very granular.

And given the immaturity of the state of economics relative to other
disciplines, I don't see why anyone should just have blanket faith in the free
market. The "freeness" of a market is but one variable in what is possibly a
million-factor model, a model that possibly won't ever be developed in our
lifetime.

~~~
mdpopescu
The economics I know and love is not an experimental science.

------
JumpCrisscross
John Oliver had a segment on the lottery [1]. It may be difficult to wean
states off lottery income in the short-term. A ban - or severe limitations -
on their advertising would be a good, realistic first step.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PK-
netuhHA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PK-netuhHA)

------
brc
Of all the taxes in the world, I have no real problem with lotteries. I can
see there is an argument for needing to have clearer advertising on what the
house 'take' is on the he tickets, but most people don't know how much tax
they are paying on their fuel, electricity, alcohol etc.

Yes, it's regressive on the poor as these people overwhelming play the
lottery. But so are alcohol and cigarette taxes. The point of those taxes is
to raise revenue from undesirable activities as they both have inelastic
demand curves and need to be curbed if possible for the good of society.

Perhaps a useful improvement woudo be to cap the number of lottery tickets a
person can buy.

Certainly it makes me depressed to see how much selling lottery tickets
dominates retailing in small stores. That means a lot of money is being raked
in.

~~~
tptacek
State lotteries don't try to curb gambling, despite broad recognition of the
harm it inflicts. It's rather the opposite: they're elaborately designed and
marketed to draw people in.

~~~
brc
Sure, and tobacco and alcohol taxes only do a mild job in curbing consumption
- the collectors of the excise taxes are designed and marketed to draw people
in.

A 'sin tax' really only operates at the margin and are -clearly- not effective
at stopping people with a dependence on the 'sin'. At most it encourages
under-consumption with people who only have a mild tendency to use that
product.

------
tim333
>There is clearly demand for this type of gambling, so the focus should be on
providing it in a way that is not exploitative.

>The government should get out of the lottery-for-profit business

>Allow private businesses to offer lotteries and compete with each other

I'm sure banning government lotteries and replacing them with private ones
would be great for society. I mean what could go wrong?

~~~
forrestthewoods
No really. What could go wrong? Tell me.

A lottery is just gambling. We already have frameworks for regulating private
gambling. Vegas is fine. The world hasn't ended.

So tell me. What would go wrong if lotteries were privatized and regulated to
a similar degree as Las Vegas?

~~~
pil4rin
Well, for starters, Robert De Niro is getting a bit old to star in the mob
movie surrounding the early infancy stage of corrupt privatized lotteries.
</s>

------
stevenh
Some states aren't even paying the winners anymore.

[http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/31/illinois-lottery-winners-
rece...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/31/illinois-lottery-winners-receive-iou-
amid-lack-of-budget.html)

------
oldmanjay
The lottery is society's attempt to capture money that would otherwise go to
illegal bookmaking operations on the theory that the state deserves the money
more than citizens.

~~~
jimhefferon
It does keep a lot of people from putting their money in with organized crime.

~~~
fredkbloggs
It doesn't. The mafia's games were cheaper. The problem was that playing was
compulsory. What keeps people from playing the mafia's games is that the mafia
is essentially defunct.

------
anindyabd
It's easy to understand why states are willing to raise a significant amount
of their budget through the lottery. It's because people -- especially
Americans -- hate taxes, and many politicians come to power by promising lower
taxes. But states still need money for schools and roads and all those good
things that people still expect, so lottery is an easy way to raise that
money. Without the lottery, states will never come close to balancing budgets
unless efficient, progressive taxes are implemented. Something tells me that
will be hard to do.

~~~
Frozenlock
... Or efficient, strict expenditures are implemented. Something tells me that
this would be hard to do.

------
grellas
Lotteries are a sucker game because, as in California (for example), the
players put their money into the pot, the house takes one-third off the top
(administrative expenses), the house takes another one-third for a good cause
(education or whatever), and the players take their chances against one
another playing for the remaining one-third.

I don't care how normal odds of winning are calculated. The above is a shell
game in which the only certain losers (from a financial standpoint) are the
players.

That is what a typical lottery system boils down to, in essence. It may be
possible to justify them for the social causes they promote but they clearly
take advantage of the players and particularly those who do not focus on the
obviously horrible odds against them when they play in such a stacked game.

This may or may not be a "tax" in the technical sense but it sure is a case of
the government rationalizing a system by which it (in my view) takes advantage
of its citizens in the name of advancing its social agenda on other fronts.

------
reality_czech
This article doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The author states that
lotteries exploit people of lower intelligence and addicts. Then he states
that we should allow private companies to run lotteries instead of the state,
so that they can be run on more advantageous terms for the players. But if the
players are not intelligent or are addicted, how will they choose "better"
lotteries? It seems more likely to me that with private companies in the mix,
there will be more advertising and more players, but not better terms.

My grandmother plays the lottery every week and she enjoys it. She is not
stupid or addicted, just someone who enjoys the feeling that she might win
something.

Do we really need to have a moral panic over something that is quite normal
and ordinary? I'm sure there are people who buy too many lottery tickets or
are irresponsible with their money. I'm equally sure that privatizing or
driving the lottery underground will not solve their problems.

------
parennoob
One of the section headings puts it correctly:

"It’s not a tax on the stupid. It’s a tax on addicts, and their families."

That, I think, is the most fair categorization. But you already see such taxes
(for example, in the inflated medical insurance premiums for smokers). So it's
not particularly different from existing "addiction premiums".

------
natrius
We now have digital currencies. The state lottery monopolies will be
outcompeted, and their competitors will be impossible to shut down.

Here's one that's decentralized and provably fair:
[https://etherpot.github.io/](https://etherpot.github.io/)

~~~
vanattab
>Probably fair

Really? The following text is coped from them message at the top of the link
you provided.

TLDR: block.blockhash() only works for the previous 256 blocks, so EtherPot is
broken.

Something strange happened with EtherPot after it launched. There were 3
subpots the first round, but somehow a single player was being reported as the
winner of all 3. This single account only had 8% of the tickets, so winning
all 3 subpots was pretty unlikely.

~~~
logn
Yes. From what I gather the correct way to generate a random number is
described here:
[https://explorer.etherapps.info/dice](https://explorer.etherapps.info/dice)
... and some background discussion here:
[https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/546/lll-question-
rando...](https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/546/lll-question-random-
number-function)

However, that game is not totally fair. There's a house edge and of course
fees to pay the Ethereum network (the miners).

And stepping back, I think Ethereum overall slightly missed the mark. I like
the idea of Turing complete programs verified in a blockchain. But I don't
think there should be any cost if you're able to run your own node. Further,
it's impossible to know the cost of a Turing complete program (halting
problem) which is further compounded by the relatively confusing fee chart
(variable based on market demand) and currency unit names.

~~~
im3w1l
Anyone verifying the blockchain will have to run the programs in it. So it
makes sense to charge a little bit for people to be able to put programs in
there.

------
PythonicAlpha
The worst thing is IMHO (when what was stated is true) that the state uses
lottery spending on education to withdraw tax money from education.

Education is (or should be) one of the major duties of the state. When this is
more and more committed to charity, than we are about to loose one of the main
pillars of modern society. Already, education of the masses is getting weaker
and weaker in many countries, so that the better of people send their children
to private schools ... and that is a growing trend.

But of course, when taxes have to go down and down (this is a political
manifesto today in some countries), schools and people will loose.

------
inopinatus
If you are going to enter a lottery, it makes sense to buy the cheapest
possible ticket and enter as infrequently as possible.

Why? Because there's no rational basis for entering a lottery. It relies
entirely on magical thinking. You are effectively polling for the existence of
a _personal luck deity_. There is no need to use a complicated, expensive
system for this.

A single $1 ticket, purchased annually, will suffice (this is available in
Australia).

In the infinitesimal chance that the magical thinkers are correct, this single
purchase will be sufficient for your _personal luck deity_ to respond with the
appropriate riches.

~~~
jqm
Or, you could just keep your eyes open for a lost ticket in the street. Your
odds are probably not a lot less.

------
trgn
I saw somebody argue once that the main purpose of a state run lottery is to
keep the masses from rising up. As long as the poor think there is a magic way
out - as long as they can draw some hope from buying a lottery ticket - they
will be more sedated. To be extra effective, there was also the need to
nurture the idea that wealth doesn't make you happy, to provide comfort for
those who did not win; hence the steady stream of news stories about lottery
winners squandering their sudden wealth, or losing their friends and family.

I can't find the video now.

------
jheriko
its always amazed me that gambling on lotteries goes so unregulated.

i can get gambling on a lot of things like sports, rare events or whether your
mate can do x in y seconds... this has some element of fun. lotteries though,
they distil gambling to its purest form - numbers...

its like injecting nicotine instead of smoking cigarettes.

~~~
dx211
Guess how I can tell you've never injected nicotine?

~~~
duskwuff
Why, because he's still alive? :)

------
pekk
We have the words "inefficient, regressive, and exploitative" but the missing
word is "voluntary." If we are going to treat the lottery as a tax, what
products and services should also be treated as taxes levied by companies
rather than the government?

------
panic
Would it be possible to run a "redistributive" lottery with positive expected
value below a certain tax bracket but negative expected value above that
bracket? The idea would be to redistribute wealth from rich players to poor
players.

~~~
crpatino
You can do this with enough marketing. Some ideas on how to engage the "1%
minus 0.01%":

1\. Avoid associating your new lottery to the low-status images of "making it
big" and "lifting out of property". Instead sell them on the image that they
are so much more moral for "giving back" and "doing their share".

2\. Instead of cold cash, make the prizes be aspirational things that mark
them as high-status. Houses, cars, overseas vacations, etc. Make the prizes
classy, let the prospect indulge in the fantasy that they too are part of the
elite.

3\. Make the tickets both scarce and expensive. This way, the ticket itself is
a high status marker. Bonus points if you present the image on how much better
the chance to win is compared with regular lottery (never mind that both
quantities are negligible from a practical point of view). This way they can
congratulate themselves on how much more smart than the hoi-polloi they are,
on top of being nicer and more benevolent too.

------
jordanpg
The lottery (and gambling generally) is also a disgusting side-effect of free-
market economies.

It enables those 5% of ticket buyers who are buying 54% of all tickets to
experience a false sense of economic security or maybe possibility. In terms
of intellectual toxicity, the lottery (and gambling) is right up there with
religion.

In my opinion, it is a _manifest_ moral failing on the part of state
governments, regardless of the fiscal details. If only -- if only -- there was
another source of hope besides the accumulation of more consumer goods.

~~~
meric
Probably worse than religion, because at least religion occasionally
encourages positive behaviour.

~~~
jqm
While that's true, lottery tickets are only $1. Mormons at least ask for 10%.

------
williesleg
Absolutely. Fully agreed. And so are casinos. You notice they're built near
high concentrations of poor people so they can get back all that welfare money
rather than cutting it.

------
daodedickinson
"Abstractly considered, the hanging of the gamblers at Vicksburg, was of but
little consequence. They constitute a portion of population, that is worse
than useless in any community; and their death, if no pernicious example be
set by it, is never matter of reasonable regret with any one. If they were
annually swept, from the stage of existence, by the plague or small pox,
honest men would, perhaps, be much profited, by the operation."

~~~
knodi123
Abraham Lincoln said this. But you cut him off right before he got to the
point!

"Similar too, is the correct reasoning, in regard to the burning of the negro
at St. Louis. He had forfeited his life, by the perpetration of an outrageous
murder, upon one of the most worthy and respectable citizens of the city; and
had not he died as he did, he must have died by the sentence of the law, in a
very short time afterwards. As to him alone, it was as well the way it was, as
it could otherwise have been.--But the example in either case, was fearful.--
When men take it in their heads to day, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers,
they should recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such
transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a
gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they
set, the mob of to-morrow, may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them
by the very same mistake."

------
azth
> There is clearly demand for this type of gambling, so the focus should be on
> providing it in a way that is not exploitative.

There is clearly demand for people shooting themselves in the foot, so the
focus should be on providing it in a way that is not exploitative.

------
duderific
Interesting but not surprising that the frequency/volume of play is an almost
perfect example of the 80/20 rule: 20% of the players account for 82% of the
sales, while 80% of the players account for 18% of the sales.

------
Bahamut
A bit offtopic, but where did that article get their chart with house odds
from? Generally, Blackjack has been said to have better odds, usually with
roughly a 1% house advantage and supposedly the closest to 50% odds there is.

------
SEJeff
My father has always taught me, since I was young, that the state lottery is
simply a tax on people who have never been taught probability or statistics.
He used that as a lesson when he was teaching me about probability and
compound interest :)

Obviously if you win, you win big, but overall, I tend to strongly agree with
him. It is a tax on those who don't think about probability, except for the
people who gamed the system and won:
[https://slice.mit.edu/2012/08/14/winning-the-
lottery/](https://slice.mit.edu/2012/08/14/winning-the-lottery/)

Gaming it is pure genius.

~~~
murbard2
The article precisely argues that this viewpoint is wrong and damaging. The
problem isn't the fact that lotteries are "irrational", the problem is that
the state monopoly works de facto as an excise tax on a product which is
extremely popular with the poor.

~~~
daodedickinson
The article's been badly labeled.

------
tomohawk
Lotteries are just a tax on people who are bad at math. But it seems like
people who are bad at math will be at a disadvantage with just about anything
involving money.

------
tmaly
I would like to see all state income tax converted over to a lottery based
tax. That way you would see a few winners instead of nothing

------
peterburkimsher
The only winning move is not to play. - WarGames.

------
lazyant
Lotteries should advertise the odds and the percentage that goes to prizes
(31% from the article is low, largest I found is 70%)

------
EGreg
Monopolies and taxes are two different things.

~~~
dragonwriter
The distinction between monopoly rents from a government-mandated monopoly and
a tax on the category of service for which it is a monopoly is very hard to
see.

~~~
EGreg
A tax would be if a certain class of people were forced to pay for the
monopoly service, in this case some people would be forced to play the
lottery.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A tax would be if a certain class of people were forced to pay for the
> monopoly service, in this case some people would be forced to play the
> lottery.

If the government taxes a particular non-monopoly service, no one is forced to
buy the service, but the tax is still recognized as a tax.

Mandating a monopoly on a class of service, which monopoly then extracts
monopoly rents -- especially where the state receives the rents, or a share
thereof -- is pretty hard to meaningfully distinguish from taxing the class of
service. Sure, no one is compelled to purchase the service, but a tax on
alcohol or tobacco doesn't stop being a tax because no one is forced to
purchase alcohol or tobacco.

------
dandare
STATE lottery is a tax, an inefficient, regressive, and exploitative tax.
There is nothing wrong with lotery as such.

------
jeffdavis
...and optional

~~~
tunesmith
Behavior is affected by advertising; otherwise, advertising wouldn't exist.
The personal accountability argument rings hollow compared to the examples in
the article of marketing directly towards people that can't afford lottery
purchases as a simple "entertainment" choice.

~~~
oldmanjay
Absent evidence that marketing literally compels behavior, arguments against
the role of personal accountability are aspirational at best.

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kelukelugames
Lottery tax doesn't go to education. Just like donations to your school for X
does not go to X.

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williesleg
I thought lotteries were where money gets laundered legally.

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azernik
Old saying - "the lottery is a tax on stupidity".

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FrankenPC
It's not a tax. It's a statistics lesson for dummies.

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volune
But seeing as it's voluntary, it's probably the best tax we have.

