Comments
by Scoper...
BALLS OF DREAMS
A new record has just been set in
the U.S., that of: Biggest Lottery Jackpot Ever. Three hundred million
dollars will be on the line for Tuesday's 7-state "Big Game" drawing. Can
you even imagine winning 300 million dollars? The fact that the jackpot's
grown to that size means a lot of people can, some of them buying chances
using money they can't afford to lose.
And they WILL lose, and Wednesday
morning they'll still have to go to work, and the stack of unpaid bills
will still be on the kitchen table. "What of that?" you ask. "They knew
the odds going in - if they took time to read them - and for a few bucks,
for a few days, they lived the dream." But it's a broken dream, and one
wonders if that's worse than no dream at all.
Don't get me wrong. I have no philosophical
problem with state lotteries themselves, or with people playing them. What
makes me uneasy is the cockeyed logic surrounding their setup and operation.
Even the process of getting one approved
by a legislature or in a referendum is deceptive. The pro-lottery faction
tries to sell it on the basis that it's for the "public good," because
proceeds will be earmarked for the public schools. I don't know of any
state that's shown a significant or even measurable improvement in education
attributable to lottery money. (This touches on the debate over whether
schools have problems merely because we're not throwing enough money at
them. But that's a debate for another day.)
Another argument (big in the Carolinas,
which currently have no lottery) is that millions of dollars are flowing
across their borders to states that do, namely Georgia and Virginia. Therefore,
WE should have a lottery because THEY have one. (Oh, and don't forget,
it's for the children.)
Then there's the "voluntary tax"
argument, apparently aimed at Libertarians or those who otherwise feel
they're being bled dry by mandatory income, property, sales and excise
taxes.
Once a lottery is set up, the state
suddenly finds itself in the precarious position of promoting gambling,
while trying to distance itself from charges that it's advancing a very
real societal ill known as "gambling addiction." States that once vigorously
prosecuted "numbers rackets" (lotteries not run by the states) now need
to encourage as many of its citizens as possible to play theirs. And since
the lottery is inherently a terrible bet mathematically, the state ends
up selling pie-in-the-sky dreams to its poorer citizens, who spend a disproportionate
share of their income on tickets.
Again, I don't maintain that state
lotteries are evil, just hypocritical. Governments are engaging in behavior
it condemns in its own citizens, even to throwing them in jail. In some
states, lottery proceeds have been diverted from schools to other pet political
projects, meaning basically that the state lied to its voters from the
outset.
The only way to treat gambling honestly
is to open it up across the board, supervise it to keep the games fair,
and if you'll pardon the phrase, let the chips fall where they may. The
truly sick gamblers are going to self-destruct anyway; they're doing it
now.
In the interest of accuracy, I will
say that the current Big Game jackpot IS a good mathematical bet, because
you have a 1 in 76 million chance of winning $300 million on a one-dollar
ticket. Of course, there's a much better chance - about one in 8 million
- that you'll be struck by lightning this year. But don't let that stop
you. Odds are, you'll be fine. Odds are incredibly good you ain't never
gonna win no big bucks in the lottery.
Here's an even better bet: that I
won't be driving an hour and a half to the next state to buy a lottery
ticket myself. Unless you'll give me decent odds on whether I'll have a
fatal wreck along the way…
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