Gambling and Public Lotteries

[traininthedistance]

I believe the original argument for public lotteries was that they would replace Mafia-run "numbers games" and thus serve as an inoculation against the spread of organized crime.  I think that is an argument that has a good deal of merit, so I'm not necessarily opposed to them in principle.

However, in practice you are quite right that they've become a regressive tax on the poor and the less-educated.  Expecting them to be a major revenue source, and/or spending on the sorts of large and flashy marketing campaigns that they receive this day and age, is certainly a bad idea.

[traininthedistance]

In principle, I agree that lotteries are a regressive tax on poor people that hurts society. 

However, I wonder whether allowing legal private lotteries would actually in practice improve the situation.  What if private lotteries were more unscrupulous and scammed people?  Maybe you create laws regulating the lotteries.  But, then the government has to spend money regulating, investigating and overseeing this private lottery system, and the government has to find ways to raise the revenue that the lottery created.  Plus, the lottery proceeds would just go to a private company.  So, maybe you end up with paradoxically more government bureaucracy, the same regressive wealth effect, but with the beneficiaries being a private company and not the taxpayer and higher taxes.  That might not be worth taking a moral stand about fleecing poor people.

This nails it, I think.  Banning public lotteries will just throw away government revenue and give it to private companies. Meanwhile, instead of the revenue going to funding government programs for seniors or scholarships for students, it will be used to fund a billionaire CEO's 9th private jet.

I realize that my position here probably sounds very Moderate Hero, but I would like to keep public lotteries but slash their marketing budgets- thereby preserving their legitimate purpose as a way to keep this unavoidable activity out of more exploitative hands, and making a few bucks for gov't programs on the side, but toning down the more problematic "pusher" aspect.  I don't know if there's anyone else here who also finds that to be a least-bad compromise.

Allow them. Gambling and lotteries are a form of entertainment, and it is a person's choice whether or not they want to do it. If a person loses all their money because they made bad decisions, its on them.

This. The infantilization of the "poors" among many on the left is quite disturbing. Apparently they can't be trusted to buy a lottery ticket or a large soft drink because those are such unwise decisions and they must be protected by the nanny state.

Academic research supports the idea that people under stress make worse decisions.

And, of course, if you hold that MJ is a stress reliever...