Losers
by David Benzion · 06/11/2007 6:10 amLate last week, LST’s own Matt Bramanti noted a less-than-overwhelmingly persuasive Houston Chronicle subscription marketing ploy–i.e., an opportunity to learn the answer to that most pressing of questions, “Who buys the most lottery scratch-off tickets?”
On Sunday came the shocking news–it turns out that most lottery tickets (including newly introduced $10, $20, $25, $30, and even $50 per scratch-off games) are purchased not by well-educated, gainfully-employed, sober, and affluent citizens, but by stone-stupid, marginally-employed, frequently intoxicated poor folks.*
Who’da guessed that?
The painfully baffling thing here is that the Chronicle (and sister-publication the San Antonio Express-News, where the two reporters are based) actually have a bit of a nice story here. The Texas Lottery Commission really does appear to have tried to justify these more expensive tickets with claims that they would be purchased by the affluent, not the poor.
Anyone with half a brain in their head knows that that argument is on-it’s-face absurd; $30 scratch-off tickets simply mean that poor people who shouldn’t be gambling any of their money are simply going to lose what meager funds they have that much quicker. And the fact that an organ of government–the Texas Lottery Commission–is responsible for taking advantage of these folks is a moral outrage, and a public shame.
I just can’t figure out why a solid, legitimate, clear-cut story–”State government preys on economically disadvantaged”–had to get slopped over with a “Fun Facts Feature!” article lede.
* (OK, the reporters aren’t quite that blunt, but you get the drift.)
UPDATED–OK, at least the AP gets it; compare this “serious news” take that gets right to the point with the breezy style of the original.
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I like to refer to the lottery as the Moron Tax.
WHAT? You mean the Texas Lottery is not a retirement program?
Squawk, I think I have a better chance with the lottery retirement plan than social security.
#1 GriffithLea
You won’t be saying that when I hit the big one!!
The Texas Lottery is, and always has been, a tax on the poor. I’m against government entitlement programs that are so easy to abuse, but I’m even more against taking money back from the recipients under the guise that all of their problems can go away with the scratch of a ticket.
But the money goes for education**, so I’m the bad guy that doesn’t want to help children and teachers with this program…
** kinda
Even today, you can find just as much news as the Chronicle and the Express in the Houston Post and the San Antonio Light
#5 - this is not a tax on the poor. Noone forces ANYONE to buy a ticket. And the last time I checked it was still legal to be stupid. What other things should we forbid “poor” people from buying? How about liquor, how about unhealthy food, how about they shouldn’t be spending their money on any type of junk since they are poor?
#7 dcgirl– I agree with everything you say… but remember, the Texas Lottery Commission is part of the GOVERNMENT… so when it takes advantage of the poor, it is (in a sense) doing so in my name.
I can’t stop stupid poor people from making bad decisions, and I wouldn’t want to empower government to try to regulate them… but I wouldn’t PERSONALLY take advantage of a stupid poor person like this, and I don’t want my government doing it either.
As it is now, part of the taxes I pay goes to folks at the TLC so they can sit around and figure out how to take advantage of some of the most vulnerable members of society. Mind you, this is because the government can’t figure out ways to find efficiencies and meet its basic obligations with the revenue it already collects.
Blech.
$50 scratch-offs?!?!?!? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Don’t expect the gov’t to regulate stupidity when they have the market cornered….
What do you win for $50.00, personally if I want to burn through $50.00, I’ll go to Edd’s place and have a nice dinner
#11 i’m with you! kiddo goes to UNT, and last parents weekend she and I went to the cacino at the Oklahoma border. I haven’t experienced anything like that and was astounded at the retired people sitting on stools, glazed looks on their faces, pushing buttons. They weren’t even dressed up! The majority of people there were my age or older and ashen looking. If that is what gambling does for an area, no thanks!
#12
To gamble or not should be a personal decision, not something the government tells me I can or cannot do. The saddest thing about the casinos on the Louisiana and Oklahoma borders is how much money from Texas ends up there, creating jobs in their states, and paying their taxes.
#13 you and I will part ways here. I believe there are things we need protection from, gambling being one. Yes it should be a personal decision, but we are not always wise nor do we make good decisions. The people I saw gambling did not look wealthy, or healthy. Since this was my first experience anywhere but Las Vegas, I say no to it.
#4
Except you won’t.
#7
I agree that it doesn’t meet the definition of a tax, but it takes advantage of the poor/uneducated all the same. I think where people (such as myself) get off calling it a “tax” is that the gambling involved is only legal when the government happens to be running the house. How about if alcohol were legal, but only when purchased from the government?
#5
Yeah, what a bait-and-switch that was.