There were no new billionaires in North Carolina Wednesday night. But many of us were a few dollars poorer.
The Powerball prize reached a record $1.6 billion, setting off a buying frenzy at retail locations selling lottery tickets. Winning numbers were purchased in Tennessee, Florida and California, resulting in a three-way split of the monster jackpot.
It’s not logical to get in the game when the odds of winning grow longer, but apparently we can’t help ourselves. Dreams of unfathomable wealth overwhelm good judgment, propelling ticket sales upward.
That’s how the lottery works for elected leaders. The lure of easy money replaces sound public policy. They would rather cut taxes, which no one likes to pay, and make up the lost revenue with proceeds from the lottery, which so many line up to play.
This year, North Carolina’s budget anticipates net income of $529 million from lottery sales, more than ever before. The Powerball boom will help it meet that goal.
Republicans opposed the lottery when Democrats held power and created it in 2005. Most of them embrace it now, approving more games and demanding more revenue.
The flaws haven’t changed. While lottery revenue supports public education, it only supplants the tax money that went to education before there was a lottery. Education isn’t better funded. Teachers aren’t getting higher salaries because of the lottery. More children aren’t enrolled in prekindergarten classes.
We could say taxpayers are better off, but that depends. They are if they don’t play the lottery, or if they play sparingly, or if they win more than they spend.
Unfortunately, many people spend far more playing the lottery than they would pay in taxes. Study after study shows these tend to be people of modest means. The pattern holds true in North Carolina, where counties with high poverty rates account for more ticket sales. Maybe for the poor, a lottery ticket represents the last hope for a comfortable retirement or even for paying the month’s bills.
“Lottery gamblers disproportionately have lower incomes and less education,” Paul Stam, speaker pro tem of the N.C. House of Representatives, wrote in his newsletter last week. “They are enticed to spend money for a reward they are much less likely to receive than they even imagine. If this were a private swindle it would be banned by the Federal Trade Commission.”
The lottery is a bad bet. In North Carolina, it pays out just 58 cents on the dollar. Las Vegas casinos would not attract many gamblers if they offered such terrible odds. The chances of winning the Powerball prize were incredibly slight — approximately one in 292 million.
The lottery is a state-owned gambling enterprise that achieves its purpose at the expense of those willing, or enticed, to play. It relies on alluring TV ads and other advertising. It constantly offers new, glitzier games to excite players. And then there are the crazy jackpots that render so many of us senseless.
Liberals who care about the welfare of the poor and conservatives concerned about the proper role of government should be equally appalled and embarrassed. It would make more sense to charge user fees for government services — toll roads, K-12 tuition, a bill from firefighters for putting out a blaze — than to coax people to gamble precious dollars on the most unrealistic hopes of becoming instant billionaires.
Even Stam, one of the few Republican legislators who has maintained a principled opposition to the lottery since his party assumed power in Raleigh, isn’t calling for its repeal. It’s here to stay. He’s just pushing for more accurate advertising of the real chances of winning and losing.
Better would be getting government out of the gambling trade and supporting education through fair taxation.
