Should the lottery be abolished?

Turkey · December 25, 2016, 09:22:01 AM

Lotteries today are ostensibly taxes on the poor without any form of recourse in legislative bodies. In 2014, legal lotteries brought in $70 billion across the states in which it's legal, yet you've never heard of a politician fighting for that money staying in citizens' pockets. It's also important to note that this amount is higher than the cost of basically every other form of entertainment in the country.

The real kicker is that the poorest third of households (the same folks Romney called out for not paying taxes) account for half of all lottery sales: $35B as of 2014. Lottery tickets are also heavily advertised in poor neighborhoods. In 11 of the 43 legal states, the lottery brought in more than corporate taxes, and the payout itself is taxed at 45%.

So ought the lottery be abolished? It's an overtly predatory institution that targets the vulnerable poor, and is state-run to boot.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/lotteries-americas-70-billion-shame/392870/

More Than Mortal · December 25, 2016, 10:55:22 AM

Predatory advertising is certainly something that should be dealt with, although I'm not sure the government should be in the business of telling anybody that they shouldn't be spending $X on the given probability of an incredibly large payout.

The fact that it is state-run is fucked up, though.

Jono · December 25, 2016, 01:32:10 PM

I never win so it should be abolished

ಠ_ಠ · December 25, 2016, 01:36:47 PM

What Meta said.

SecondClass · December 25, 2016, 03:07:05 PM

Absolutely not. You're allowed to literally burn your money if you want, let alone figuratively burn it.

"Tax on the poor" implies it's mandatory to partake in.

DAS B00T x2 · December 25, 2016, 09:09:57 PM

If the government can earn a few extra bucks actually doing something besides a mandatory tax, hey, cool. Let it do it. It's all the poor urbanites who buy in to its fault that it's basically a "regressive tax on the poor", not mine.

Verbatim · December 25, 2016, 09:11:09 PM

It's a tax on stupidity, not a tax on poorness. And stupidity should be taxed.

Sαndtrap · December 26, 2016, 12:10:42 AM

Whenever I gamble I go into it knowing the odds of success and I accept that losing is a high probability. It was my choice to do so. Same as anybody else.

On the subject, I think lotto payouts should be lowered or split however. Like those massive 60 million ones. It's too much money for one person or even group of people. I know that I'd give almost all of that away.

It usually makes anybody's day when they're granted money, even something as small as 20 bucks. Why not go for something fun? A million dollars to sixty people?

Flee · December 26, 2016, 04:43:13 AM

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Flee · December 26, 2016, 04:49:38 AM

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