Stephen L. Carter wonders why we allow state-run lotteries:
There is absolutely no reason to believe that the state can provide gambling services better than the private sector does. This is not a situation in which the government will return more value to consumers than the private market will: a claim often made, for example, by critics of for-profit health insurers. As a matter of fact, state-run lotteries return around 50 percent of revenues to winners; in other words, the expected value from a $1 bet is 50 cents. No casino could stay in business offering odds this poor, but the government manages it by prohibiting competition.
Well, duh. But look at the revenues:
Now, it is true that we live in an era when the states need revenue, desperately. But are lotteries really the best way to raise them? The regressive effect of the lottery has been documented so often that the argument has become ubiquitous, simply part of the background: poor consumers spend a far higher proportion of their income on lottery tickets than wealthy consumers do. In other words, the states are raising revenue by tempting the worst off of their citizens to hand over their scarce dollars playing a game with a ridiculously low return.
I don’t think we have the luxury of being this squeamish – or condescending. No one is forced to play the lottery. My own view is that we should also set up a federal lottery and designate the revenues, as the Brits do, to government spending on health, sports, the arts and what they call heritage.
The Dish 