Lottery Fever

Do you ever get those scam E mails that say you won a lottery somewhere? If my E mail is truthful I have won the British lottery at least 10 times over the years. Hmmm No checks have been sent yet though. Those lousy Brits! They are holding my winnings until I give them my bank account so they can empty that. But really, to think that anyone would be stupid enough to think they won a lottery they never entered, and many do believe it and are scammed, shows the greed motive among we humans. We just want to believe someone, somewhere is going to give us lots of money for gambling.

What's sad is that as bad as those crooks are that send those e mails claiming people won a lottery, the real state and national lotteries are more conniving and dishonest than are the E mail mythical lottery scams. It has been calculated that the total revenue taken in by a government from lotteries run by a state or nation averages almost 60% o the total spent on lottery tickets. That means there are plenty of losers buying lottery tickets. A typical gambling trip for a person trip to private casino averages a return of only about 15% for the gambling casino, quite a bit smaller that what the state takes from gullible citizens it is supposed to protect. I know of no gambling enterprises with a bigger take for the administrator than government lotteries.

But states and nations say they need lotteries to finance schools, roads etc., and that a lottery is a painless way to raise money. I am doubtful of that claim and think places that didn't have lotteries previously have probably the same amount of spending on schools after they fleece the lottery ticket holders as they did before. Too, governments say people "will gamble anyway, so why not tax them?" Ha! If they will gamble anyway, why do those governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting their lotteries to seduce those people ("who will gamble anyway") to buy lottery tickets?

I also don't understand why the media publicizes the name and story of every big lottery winner. It's old news that a tiny few will be lucky and win. If they want to publish the winner's name they should also publish the long, long lists of every loser's name. That would bring some objectivity to the equation so people would understand that they have a greater chance of being hit by lightening than of winning a state or national lottery.

Telling people they can be lucky and win money is a bad concept for governments to promote. I can understand unsavory people promoting gambling, but when a government sinks to that level it degrades those it is supposed to represent. Governments should not be in the gambling business when seeking revenue. Instead, they should be honest with their citizens and tell them to pay more taxes or accept fewer government services.

But then, I am willing to BET that will never happen...